Pentagon Papers leaker on Vietnam War dies

The New York Times reported that Daniel Ellsberg, the military analyst who revealed the secrets of America's "lies" in the Vietnam War - the Pentagon Papers, passed away on June 16 at his home in Kensington, California.

According to Daniel Ellsberg's wife and daughter, he died at the age of 92, after a battle with pancreatic cancer.

Photo of Mr. Daniel Ellsberg in 1971. (Photo: AP)

Daniel Ellsberg worked as a defense analyst for the RAND Corporation in the 1960s.

Daniel Ellsberg's views on the Vietnam War gradually changed after reading secret Pentagon documents. These documents showed that the US government lied to the public about the possibility of winning the war in Vietnam, when the reality was completely opposite.

From there, Mr. Daniel Ellsberg decided to reveal the entire "Pentagon Papers" in 1971. The 7,000-page file mentioned US policy in Vietnam during the period 1945 - 1967.

According to documents revealed by Daniel Ellsberg, the US government admitted that they could not win this war.

Daniel Ellsberg was tried in federal court in Los Angeles on espionage and other charges. He faced up to 115 years in prison when he went on trial in 1973.

However, he was acquitted after the court found that former President Richard Nixon's government had committed many wrongdoings, including breaking into the clinic of psychiatrist Daniel Ellsberg.

After the US Supreme Court rejected the argument of President Richard Nixon's administration that revealing the Pentagon Papers would affect national security, many US newspapers published the contents of the documents, of which the New York Times was the first newspaper to provide information about the Pentagon Papers.

In 2017, the leak of the "Pentagon Papers" by "whistleblower" Daniel Ellsberg was portrayed in the movie "The Post".

Daniel Ellsberg was born on April 7, 1931, in Chicago. He received his doctorate from Harvard and then joined the RAND Corporation. He has been married twice and has two sons and a daughter.

In 1964, Daniel Ellsberg was an advisor to US Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara. As US involvement in Vietnam deepened, he traveled to Saigon in 1965 to assess the situation.

Kong Anh (Source: The New York Times)

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