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About Daniel Ellsberg
Daniel Ellsberg graduated from Harvard in 1952 then studied at King's College, Cambridge University. In 1954, he joined the U.S. Marine Corps and served for three years.
In 1957, he became a Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows, Harvard University, and earned his Ph.D. in 1962. In 1959, he became a strategic analyst at the RAND Corporation and consultant to the Defense Department and the White House, specializing in problems of the command and control of nuclear weapons, nuclear war plans, and crisis decision-making. He joined the Defense Department in 1964 to work on Vietnam issues as Special Assistant to Assistant Secretary of Defense (International Security Affairs), John McNaughton. In 1965, he transferred to the State Department and served two years at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon evaluating pacification on the front lines.
In 1967, Ellsberg joined the McNamara Study Group which produced the classified History of Decision Making in Vietnam, 1945-1968, which became known as the Pentagon Papers. While studying the documents, he became disillusioned with the war. In 1969, he photocopied the study and gave it to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. After finding no sympathetic senator to release the documents, Ellsberg leaked them to The New York Times, The Washington Post and 17 other newspapers in 1971.
Ellsberg was charged with 12 felony counts, including theft, conspiracy and espionage, and, if found guilty, faced up to 115 years in prison. His case was dismissed in 1973 on grounds of governmental misconduct against him, which factored into the convictions of several White House aides and the impeachment of President Richard Nixon.
Since the end of the Vietnam War, Ellsberg has been a lecturer, writer and activist. He is the author of Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers and the founder of the Truth-Telling Project. He has won several awards, including the first Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Fellowship and the 2006 Right Livelihood Award, known as the "Alternative Nobel Prize."
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