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The Pentagon Papers
With Daniel Ellsberg
Author
Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2002; 2 p.m. ET

In "Secrets: a Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers," author and activist Daniel Ellsberg discusses how and why he decided to leak 7,000 photocopied pages of top-secret material on America's war in Vietnam to the press.

Ellsberg will be online to discuss his book and the inside story behind the Pentagon Papers.

The transcript follows.

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

Canton, Okla.: Why did you feel Neil Sheehan was the right person to give the Pentagon Papers to? Why didn't you go to Congress with the information?

Daniel Ellsberg: My first act was to go to Congress with Papers, specifically the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I gave them to Senator Fulbright, the Chairman, in November, 1969. I hoped he would hold hearings, call witnesses and uses the Papers as a basis for questioning. But he chose not, in the end, to do that. Two invasions later--Cambodia and Laos--I went to Neil Sheehan. I chose him because my very first leaks of classified information--in March of 1968--had been to him, who I knew slightly from Vietnam. I thought he and the Times had dealt well with those leaks. (This story, never told before, is in my book). I also felt that the New York Times was the only paper that would print documents at length, if any paper would. This turned out to be correct. (The Post, for example, chose not to print documents).

Canton, Okla.: Looking back on the Pentagon Papers ordeals, are you satisfied with the outcomes?

Daniel Ellsberg: What I wanted, above all, was to help shorten the war. Publishing the Papers was only one instrument to that end. For almost two years, it appeared to have no effect on policy in Vietnam, even though it did confirm the belief on the part of most of the public that the war should end. President Nixon was not much influenced by that opinion. But it turns out that the criminal actions he took secretly against me, to keep me from revealing more documents that would expose his own policy, were a major factor in bringing about his resignation, facing impeachment, and that did contribute to ending the war in 1975. I wish it had come earlier, but I was glad to have done what I could.

Stoughton, Mass.: I am interested in your view of the "Bright and Shining Lie" movie. I have heard that you were critical of the screenplay.

Daniel Ellsberg: I felt the screenplay was slanderously misleading about and unfair to my friend John Paul Vann, though I was portrayed very sympathetically (to his disadvantage!) Therefore I insisted that they remove my name from the character supposedly portraying me. They did this. I told them that I would have had no quarrel with the screenplay, after that, if they would change just two other names: John Paul Vann, and Vietnam. (I could make available my detailed criticism of the script if you wish to message me at EllsbergD@cs.com; maybe I'll put it on the website my son set up for me, www.ellsberg.net.

Harrisburg, Pa.: The Nixon White House went to great lengths in seeking to discredit you. When did you become aware of the extent they were acting to ruin your reputation?

Daniel Ellsberg: I didn't know about the "plumbers" until late April, 1973, when Dean's disclosures to his prosecutors came out in my courtroom. See the account in my book. (When I say this in these answers, I could give chapter and page numbers, but it would take too long for me to look them up. But those interested can find it easily enough).

Laurel, Md.: Hi --

Many people have compared the Gulf of Tonkin resolution to the recent Congressional resolution authorizing President Bush to invade Iraq.

Do you think this is an accurate comparison?

Also, in the 1960s many people in the administration and military felt that Vietnam would be a six-month war, just as many officials in the same postions today are saying that a war with Iraq will be short and successful. Do you see any similarities between this past conflict and this future conflict?

Daniel Ellsberg:
The resolution just passed could well be known as "Tonkin Gulf II." It is an exact reproduction, in its essentials (different region, of course) to Tonkin Gulf "I", which passed three days after I joined the Pentagon as a full-time employee on August 4, 1964. (See the opening chapter of my book). As Senator Morse pointed out then, such an open-ended "undated declaration of war" delegating the war power which is the exclusive responsibility of Congress to the president was probably unconstitutional then, and is today. It was and is an irresponsible abnegation of Congressional authority, probably made because now as then, a) Congresspersons prefer not to have to bear that responsibility themselves, that uncertainty as to how it will come out, despite the Constitution's having "burdened" them with it; b) Democrats, specifically, are unwilling to be tarred by their Republican opponents with being "soft" on America's enemies, unwilling to use force, unmanly, not being willing to rely on military measures. Many Americans have died in the last 50-plus years in the effort by Democrats in the Executive branch and in Congress to avoid being called such names, ever since the Republican leadership starting in early 1950 used Senator Joe McCarthy to launch such charges about "who lost China." It's about to happen again.

Washington, D.C.: Based on your experience with bringing controversial government actions into the national debate, how would you suggest that a person with information that is relevant to the Sept. 11 intelligence failure investigations bring those documents to the media? Should they work through a lawyer, an attorney at one of the major news organizations, or what?

Daniel Ellsberg: There are many ways of getting the truth to Congress and the public, for an official who knows that they are being deceived by the Executive branch on matters of life and death, war and peace. These methods have various degrees of personal risk, though ALL of them involve some risk to career. (Thus, legal advice is worthwhile from early on, as you contemplate this; organizations like GAP and others supporting whistleblowers can give you good advice. Some lawyers will refuse to be involved, or will flatly advise you that the risks are too great for you to contemplate: without examining the specifics of your situation, in which saving human lives may be very directly involved. Go to other lawyers.)

Yet ALL of these methods are worth considering, even the most professiionally risky, when a war's worth of lives are at stake. They range from anonymously or (more effectively) personally providing DOCUMENTS to the "oversight" committeess--least risky, but possible least effective--to providing them to members of other relevant committees, such as Foreign Relations or Armed Services, or to known-sympathetic members of Congress, to, at the other extreme, providing documents in large quantity (after, of course, using your own best professional judgment to exclude any that would, in your cautious opinion, actually endanger individuals or harm national security) to the newspapers, in such quantity that your identity is likely to become known. A press conference is even a possibility; but it is not at all essential to the effectiveness of what you're doing that your own name be made public, as a red flag to the Administration. I myself (see my book) would have greatly preferred to be an anonymous source, rather than to challenge the Administration to prosecute me; I only revealed myself after it was clear they were going to prosecute anyway, and then I revealed myself as the source in order to deflect suspicion, as best I could, from others.

But in any case, the important thing, practically speaking, is to PROVIDE DOCUMENTS. When it comes to contradicting the president, and alerting the public to a situation which, in your best judgment, the national security and many human lives are endangered by the Administration's improper secrecy, concealment and deception, there is no substitute for documents.

Washington, D.C.: I think you have been speaking into an echo chamber for 30 years. You just said you brought about Nixon's resignation. Don't you think John Dean and those Senate Hearings and special prosecutors caused him to resign? Plus, the Pentagon Papers were a dud. It made for an interesting court case, but was very much a non-event in ending the War. Ever wonder why no hearings took place when you passed them to the Foreign Relations committee in '68? They were too boring. Move on with your life, or at the very least, listen to the other side of the historical argument.

Daniel Ellsberg: Of course, "I" didn't cause Nixon to resign. His own criminal acts, which (see my book) his own tapes now reveal were in significant part a response to his fear that I might reveal OTHER documents relating to his own war policy. The Pentagon Papers, as I describe from the tapes in my book, not only--as I said above, and as you said--had NO effect directly on his war policy; in fact, he was very HAPPY to have them out, indicting the Democrats!) Thus, John Dean's revelations, which were indeed both essential and critical to the process leading him to resign eventually, were precisely of these acts of Nixon's against me. The point of al this is not how important I was, but that an act of truth-telling CAN--in indirect, unforeesable ways, over which the whistleblower has no control or even, for years if ever, no knowledge--be effective in saving lives. That's why it's worth "considering," even when the career risks are real.

As for why there were no hearings in Congress based on the Papers in 1969, 1970, or even after they were published in 1971 (when both Fulbright and Mansfield, the Majority, initially promised hearings): Nixon's tapes support what I suspected at the time: the Congress was controlled by Democrats, and the Democratic chairmen of these committees had second thoughts about putting out information that was so damning to the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. (Nixon himself WANTED hearings, for that reason.)

Washington, D.C.: How would you characterize your relationship with people at the Post before and after they published the papers? Were they reluctant or willing publishers?

Daniel Ellsberg: They were very anxious to get the Papers. However, their lawyers came close to convincing Katherine Graham that their risks--related to a stock offering they were making (invalid if they were prosecuted) and losing their TV franchises--were too great for them to go ahead. To their great credit, reporters like Don Oberdorfer and Ben Bagdikian (to whom I gave the Papers:; then an Assistant National Editor) convinced Ben Bradless, who sided with them, that there would be extreme revolt in their newsrooms, even major resignations (Chalmers Roberts threatened this explicitly: he would hasten his scheduled retirement, and publicly say why) (probably from Bagdikian, too) that she made the courageous decision to go ahead. I give them great credit for this (the Times, too, for similar decisions in the face of warnings by their lawyers: their traditional law firm actually quit their employ), since I've learned of it.

I had no relationship before this with anyone on the Post (except Bagdikian, who remains a friend and who contributed a comment to my book jacket) nor did I after the Papers came out.

Cleveland, Ohio:

Forgive me because this is a little before my time.

I can only guess how detrimental your release of the pentagon papers was to your life, professional and otherwise. What exactly did you do in the years afterwards to make a living.

Also, did you find that there was a community of people you could talk to? Were there other people who had gone through the same experience and were in the same boat? Like Frank Snepp for example.

Daniel Ellsberg: When I first started copying the Papers, in October, 1969, I expected to go to prison for the rest of my life. My charges on 12 felony counts could have put me in for 115 years; so I didn't overestimate the efforts of the
Administration to make my release of the Papers detrimental to my career. As I said to someone recently, "I would have gotten out in 2008, with good behavior." They said, "No you wouldn't," which I took as a compliment.

So, compared to any of that (all charges were dismissed on May 11, 1973, on grounds of the governmental misconduct revealed shortly before by John Dean and then by further testimony of Howard Hunt, John Ehrlichman, Egil Krogh, and other "plumbers") I've had a blessed life since then.

My main activity was anti-nuclear activism, till I started writing this book about six years ago. My income was almost entirely from lecturing.

I lost my whole community of friends and colleagues, all of whom (the males, or their husbands) had clearances. That is the usual, heavy cost that whistleblowers have to bear; the only real penalty I suffered. When I met Frank Snepp (only once, as I recall) he remarked, on my questioning him, that he had lost all his professional associates. I warned him: "This is bad news, but I tell you so you'll start getting used to it: none of them will ever come back." (Actually, after the Cold War ended, over fifteen years later, I did resume some acquaintanceships, at least distantly. I should mention that one friend with a clearance, Morton H. Halperin, became much closer to me after the Papers came out, because he wanted to support me in my trial, which he did, to an absolutely critical degree).

But of course, you meet new friends, a whole community of them. They don't replace in every respect friends who "knew you when," who shared distant memories with you (though I just enjoyed very much my Fiftieth Reunion of my college class), but they do share your new values and, in my case, activism, which is the strongest bond possible.

San Francisco, Calif.: How do you feel today about the people's lives that you may have destroyed by releasing all those papers with their names intact (foreign nationals and U.S. citizens who may or may not have been intelligence assets.) Did the weight of that go into your decision to have the papers published?

Daniel Ellsberg: I got a wonderful email today from a major character in my book and in my life, Tran Ngoc Chau, former colonel in ARVN, one of the heads of the pacification program, former Secretary General of the General Assembly in Saigon (later imprisoned both by General Thieu, for four years, and then by the Communists, three years). His friendship remains one of the great blessings of my life.

I had some misgivings about releasing the Papers with the name of my friend, Lou Conein, in connection with the coup against Diem. But he had already been identified (by Marguerite Higgins, in a book); and I feared that if I censored the Papers I released, even by one line, it would be charged that I had edited them to fit my agenda; and wishfully believed that what I had left out was, after all, the adequate reasons for continuing the war. Lou remained a friend; I last had lunch with him (before he died a few years ago) just after I'd been arrested at the first civil disobedience action at CIA, in McLean. To the best of my knowledge, NO ONE suffered any risk to their lives from having their names revealed in the Papers.

Washington, D.C.: How has your relationship with RAND been since the publication? How has it impacted your career?

Daniel Ellsberg: I think I just answered this. I have had no relationship at all with RAND since the Papers came out, more than thirty years ago. This was a great personal cost to me, because I respected and valued those friendships, and Rand itself. (Of course, such a cost doesn't compare with what Nixon had in mind for me, nor with what real victims of Vietnam, there and in this country, had to suffer. I certainly suffered no "martyrdom"; I got off easy, thanks to Nixon, the plumbers and Dean.)

Washington, D.C.: Mr. Ellsberg: At the time you were at Rand, we happened to share to same stockbroker, a Merrill Lynch Vice President. A few weeks after you gave the Pentagon Papers to the NYT and Post, he and I were having lunch in the restaurant directly across from his Beverly Hills office. According to him, we were sitting in the same booth where he had had breakfast with you some weeks before. He said that you had asked if the stock market would drop, taking your stocks with it, if something major occurred--you were not specific--that caused the public to lose confidence in the U.S. government.

To this day I've wondered: Did you sell your stocks or go short in anticipation of the Pentagon Papers' being released?

Daniel Ellsberg: Now, there's a new question: presumably suggested by what we've been reading, about insider trading! So I can't take offense at it; it's only plausible in this new context. The answer is--I presume you're talking about John Marshall, a nice guy (is he alive?) that I don't remember having any investment dealings with since well before the Papers came out in 1971`. The reason for that is, I used up ALL my few thousand dollars in investments (all that was left to me after my divorce) in making copies of the Papers. At 10 Cents a page, the going rate then, 7000 pages cost $700 a copy; and I made a number of copies, lest they all be captured by the FBI. No, I didn't make a cent from the publication of the Papers--I wasn't even reimbursed a penny for the copying or mailing--in any way. (Except that the notoriety that Nixon gave me by prosecuting me, and then taking criminal actions against me, unforeseeably allowed me to make a moderate living as a lecturer for years).

Washington, D.C.: How did your friends who were Marines with you felt? Any contacts now?

Daniel Ellsberg: I would love to hear from any of my fellow officers, OR ANYONE WHO SERVED WITH ME OR UNDER ME IN 3D BATTALION, 2D MARINES,

Washington, D.C.: Do you see the internet having a profound effect on journalism and whistle blowing? I for one know of at least a dozen Web sites that would probably post all 7,000 of your photocopied pages without hesitation now.

Daniel Ellsberg: Whistleblowing has potentially been transformed by the internet, in the same beneficial direction as the introduction of photocopying (I could say Xeroxing, but it turned out they were not happy with the use I made of their revolutionary product; it simply would not have been possible without that). In fact, that's how the "Cigaret Papers" were made availabe, after Merrill Williams--who I have tried to be in touch with, unsuccessfully (if anayone can put me in touch with him, I'd love it: he's the one who provided 4000 pages of documentation from Brown and Williamson proving that their officials knew their product was carcinogenic and addictive: revelations that will probably in the end save many, many more lives than the Pentagon Papers) sent them not only to the New York Times but to Glantz (I think his name is) who gave them to UC Library which put them on the web. That's what I would have done now.

See my website, www.ellsberg.net.

Forgive my writing getting somewhat incoherent; my neck is very sore from typing so fast for the last hour and a half.
but I've loved this! Especially because I have laryngitis, and this is really the only way I can communicate this afternoon. I'm trying to save my voice for a talk at Politics and Prose this evening at 7, on Connecticut Ave.

By the way, my last answer got cut off by the machine for some reason. I was about to say that I've stayed in warm touch with my first company commander, retired colonel J.W. P Robertson, the best company commander I ever saw in the Marine Corps and the best superior I ever had. Also a couple of others from Basic School. But I'd love to renew friendships with others from that period: so I was in process of saying that I would be happy to hear from anyone I knew in 3/2, definitely including privates and above who served with me. EllsbergD@cs.com. I won't be able to answer mail very soon, on this book tour, but I've missed many of my old colleagues, friends, and troopers from that period. My couple of months as a rifle company commander I look back on as the most satisfying professiional experience of my life.

They're saying here it's time to quit. Wish I could have answered more questions! Maybe I'll see some of you at Politics and Prose tonight. I'm on the Diane Rehm show tomorrow--if I have any voice left, after tonight!

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