The most dangerous man of America dies at the age of 92 The death of Daniel Ellsberg, who opened America’s secrets in the Vietnam War, was told by the White House, the most dangerous man
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quietly reached the media
Ellsberg died at his home in Kensington, California, after battling cancer. Even before Edward Snowden and Julian Assange of WikiLeaks, Ellsberg had brought the secrets of his own government to the world. Ellsberg told Americans that his government was capable of misleading and even lying to them. In his later years, Ellsberg became a whistleblower and advocate for leakers, and his ‘Pentagon Papers’ leak was featured in the 2017 film ‘The Post’. Ellsberg secretly went to the media in 1971 hoping to end the Vietnam War. Because of this, the administration of the then President Richard Nixon started targeting him.
who said most dangerous
Henry Kissinger, then the President’s National Security Advisor (NSA), described Ellsberg as ‘the most dangerous man in America’. Kissinger had said that Ellsberg should be stopped at all costs. In the mid-1960s, Ellsberg visited Saigon on behalf of the State Department. By that time he had earned three degrees from Harvard. He was also stationed with the Marine Corps and was also a part of the Rand Corporation apart from the Pentagon. Ellsberg participated in the Cold War and then served in Vietnam.
Papers were stolen with the help of children
Pentagon officials were quietly putting together a 7,000-page report covering events related to US involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. When the war ended in 1969, two of the 15 published copies were with the Rand Corporation, where Ellsberg was once again working.
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Ellsberg used his 13-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter as helpers. With the help of the children, he started stealing secret documents from the Rand Office. At night, he used to start copying it with a rented Xerox machine. He took these documents with him while going to Boston for a job at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Then after a year and a half, he gave the documents to the New York Times. The Times released the first installment of the ‘Pentagon Papers’ on June 13, 1971.
Kennedy imposed war
According to the Pentagon Papers, US officials had concluded that the US probably could not win the Vietnam War. According to him, President John F. Kennedy had approved the coup plan to overthrow the South Vietnamese leader. Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, declined to do so during the 1964 campaign. But despite this the bombings went on in North Vietnam.
Also, there were many secrets in the documents including plans to expand the war. Secret American bombings in Cambodia and Laos were also disclosed in these documents. Also, the number of injured was much higher than reported. The Times did not say how it got hold of the documents, but the FBI believed Ellsberg was behind them. Ellsberg remained underground for two weeks after these papers surfaced.
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