Daniel Ellsberg Dies: Analyst Who Leaked The Pentagon Papers To New York Times & Washington Post Was 92
deadline.comDaniel Ellsberg, a onetime advisor to Nixon Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara and RAND corporation analyst who leaked the 7,000-word secret history of the Vietnam War known as the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times and Washington Post, has died.
That, according to multiple reports. He was 92. Ellsberg’s decision to provide top secret report, officially known as the Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force, and the newspapers’ decisions to publish it proved a turning point in the public’s attitude toward the war, President Richard Nixon and trust in the government.
It was also a landmark moment for a free press in America, as the resulting Supreme Court decision upheld the right of the Times and Post to publish the documents.
The events attending the leak, publication and court clash over the papers have been the subject of multiple film and TV projects, including Steven Spielberg’s 2017 film The Post in which Matthew Rhys played Ellsberg.
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