Daniel Ellsberg

Daniel Ellsberg (born April 7, 1931) is an American military analyst, author, and whistleblower whose release of the Pentagon Papers in 1971 became a watershed moment in American government transparency and press freedom. Born in Chicago, Ellsberg earned degrees from Harvard and Oxford Universities, establishing himself as a serious intellectual and expert in strategic military policy. He worked for the RAND Corporation, a defense think tank, where he participated in analyzing strategic nuclear war scenarios and Vietnam War policy. Growing increasingly disillusioned with American policy in Vietnam, Ellsberg systematically photocopied the Pentagon Papers, a massive classified Department of Defense study documenting the political and military history of American involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. In 1971, he leaked the 7,000-page document to The New York Times, which began publishing excerpts, leading to a landmark Supreme Court case affirming press freedom and the government's inability to prevent publication. Ellsberg was prosecuted under the Espionage Act, though charges were dismissed due to government misconduct. His actions established a precedent for principled whistleblowing and influenced the government's approach to classified information and the Pentagon. Ellsberg has remained an activist and public intellectual, lecturing and writing about government transparency, nuclear weapons, and civil disobedience, becoming a symbol of moral courage against institutional power.