Pentagon Papers Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg Dies

Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked a plethora of top-secret documents that exposed the United States’ shortcomings in the Vietnam War, died on Friday, his family announced. He was 92.

Ellsberg announced he had pancreatic cancer in March and said he would forego chemotherapy—telling supporters in an email he’d spend his remaining time alive with a clear head as he spoke about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the perils of nuclear war, and free speech protections.

A family statement said Ellsberg “was not in pain, and was surrounded by loving family” when he passed. His sense of humor, they said, stayed with him until the very end.

Ellsberg, who was born in Chicago but raised in Detroit, became famous for leaking what became known as the “Pentagon Papers” to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other newspapers in 1971—a daring act that was dramatized in the film The Post in 2018.

The leak, which exposed the lies and self-deceit that drew America into the war and kept U.S. soldiers there despite no clear path to victory, sent shockwaves through the country. It inspired hundreds of thousands to anti-war protests, while President Richard Nixon and other government officials fumed.

Ellsberg’s actions, along with the government’s efforts to silence him and news outlets, led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling that ultimately strengthened the freedom of the press against government censorship.

Unlike others who leaked classified U.S. documents, Ellsberg never went to jail. A federal judge declared his case a mistrial in 1973 after the Nixon administration illegally tried to discredit Ellsberg, sending agents to break into his psychiatrist’s office in search of dirt on him.

The mistrial was a pleasant surprise to Ellsberg, then 40, who faced up to 115 years behind bars. He conceded to NPR in 2o11 that he expected to go to prison for the rest of his life, but he felt the risk was worth it to possibly end the Vietnam War early.

“Looking back, the chance that I would get out of 12 felony counts from Richard Nixon was close to zero,” he told Politico this year. “It was a miracle.”

While plenty of good came from Ellsberg’s leak, he acknowledges the Pentagon Papers did little to end the war early. Fighting in Vietnam raged for four years after the first news story of the leak ran on the cover of The New York Times on June 13, 1971.

The leak may have played some part in ending the war, however. Nixon’s outrage at Ellsberg led him to create “The Plumbers,” the clandestine group of agents that Nixon used to break into Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office. That same group was used to break into the Watergate complex—setting off a national scandal of its own that led to Nixon’s downfall.

Many, including Ellsberg, believed the Pentagon Papers were the beginning of Nixon’s fall from grace that eventually ended the Vietnam War less than a year after his resignation in 1974.

“In short, the criminal actions that the White House took against me were extraordinarily revealed in ways that led to this absolutely unforeseeable downfall of a president, which made the war endable,” Ellsberg told the New Yorker in 2021.

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Ellsberg was always clear he never regretted the leak—even before he knew he’d escape without a jail sentence.

“I felt that as an American citizen, as a responsible citizen, I could no longer cooperate in concealing this information from the American public,” he told reporters at the time. “I did this clearly at my own jeopardy and I am prepared to answer to all the consequences of this decision.”

The leak made Ellsberg a household name in America, and he didn’t shy away from the spotlight. He was outspoken against the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other conflicts worldwide. He was regularly featured in interviews, documentaries, and news segments, even into his 90s.

In his later days, those close to Ellsberg feared he had a tendency to lean hard into certain conspiracy theories—a possible symptom of being on the outside after being in covert operations for so many years.

Ellsberg repeatedly declared that the United States had been operating “an empire” since World War II, which he found to be improper—criticizing both Republicans and Democrats for taking part in it.

Ellsberg is survived by his wife of 53 years, Patricia, as well as his three kids and many grandchildren. His family said he died at his home in Kensington, California, seemingly as happy as he’d ever been—joking to loved ones, “If I had known dying would be like this, I would have done it sooner.”

In a letter, his loved ones wrote, “Daniel was a seeker of truth and a patriotic truth-teller, an anti-war activist, a beloved husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, a dear friend to many, and an inspiration to countless more. He will be dearly missed by all of us.”