Ellsberg discusses Pentagon Papers

Daniel Ellsberg, who famously leaked the top secret Pentagon Papers in the midst of the Vietnam War, gave a lecture on Thursday afternoon titled “Secrets, Lies and Leaks: From the Pentagon Papers to WikiLeaks.”

The conversation also included Bart Gellman ’82, a visiting lecturer in the Wilson School and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. The pair discussed the balance between government secrecy and the First Amendment.

Ellsberg drew a direct link between his actions as a whistleblower and the recent actions of Bradley Manning, a former Army private who was arrested in May 2010 for the alleged leaking of tens of thousands of classified war logs from Afghanistan and Iraq and some 250,000 State Department cables.

“It’s virtually impossible to distinguish what WikiLeaks did and what The New York Times did at the time,” said Ellsberg. “I identify very much with Bradley Manning.”

In 1967, as a member of the Rand Corporation, Ellsberg was responsible for a top-secret study of documents commissioned by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara surrounding the handling of the Vietnam War.

After learning the lies of the Johnson administration regarding the number of U.S. forces in Vietnam, the extent of their involvement and the subsequent plan to escalate troop levels without informing Congress or the public, Ellsberg and others ultimately provided The New York Times with copies of the classified documents which the newspaper then published.

Ellsberg was indicted and prosecuted on twelve felony counts, including espionage, theft and conspiracy, which in total numbered up to 115 years in prison. This was the first prosecution ever for a leak of classified information to the public. The charges were eventually dismissed due to gross governmental misconduct toward Ellsberg following the leak.

“I don’t think anyone should be prosecuted ... for releasing information to Congress or the public that reveals criminal behavior,” Ellsberg said.

Ellsberg criticized the Obama administration’s prosecution of six leak cases that utilizied statutes in the Espionage Act of 1917. Until then, the statutes had been used in only three other leak cases, according to Ellsberg.

“President Obama has shown a willingness to indict people for leaks beyond that of any previous president,” Ellsberg said.

Ellsberg also responded to criticism of the actions of Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks who some have accused of assisting Bradley Manning in his theft of confidential documents and publishing information that has threatened American national security interests and American lives.

He said that although he would have done some things differently from Assange, he still supports his actions.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

“He assumed judgment. I think Bradley Manning did the right thing there,” said Ellsberg, who commended Manning for leaking the information to Assange. Ellsberg said he thought it was a good idea to leak to someone with the resources to limit the release of the most sensitive and potentially harmful information. “[Assange] didn’t redact enough in my opinion.”

Ellsberg lamented the fact that the names of officials, including covert operatives, were published along with thousands of the sensitive diplomatic cables.

“I’m confident that he does not have intent to harm the United States or aid the enemy,” Ellsberg said.

Ellsberg suggested that more harm had been done by the Bush administration’s illegal actions following 9/11 than might come from the information contained in the leaks.

He also criticized actions ranging from the administration’s warrantless domestic wiretapping operations to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, both cases in which officials would eventually leak related classified intelligence.

“Here is a case where Cheney, Bush and Rumsfeld were as worthy of going before the International Court of Justice — for the crime of aggression, not genocide — as any of the defendants at Tokyo or Nuremberg,” Ellsberg said.

Ellsberg said he admires the courage of those within the government who are willing to go forward with leaking illegal activities, knowing the consequences they might face.

“He is a hero,” Ellsberg said of Bradley Manning. “The U.S. government will never see him other than as a rat, a snitch, a traitor, a bad guy ... he’s been successfully defamed.”

The event was held in Dodds Auditorium in Robertson Hall and co-sponsored by the Princeton University Committee on Public Lectures and the Wilson School, as part of the School’s “Media and Public Policy” thematic lecture series.