Daniel Ellsberg recently announced he’s been diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer. In a letter to friends, Dan Ellsberg wrote, quote, “I feel lucky and grateful that I’ve had a wonderful life far beyond the proverbial three-score years and ten. I feel the very same way about having a few months more to enjoy life with my wife and family, and in which to continue to pursue the urgent goal of working with others to avert nuclear war in Ukraine or Taiwan (or anywhere else),” unquote.
Dan Ellsberg turned 92 on April 7th. He may be the world’s most famous whistleblower. In 1971, The New York Times began publishing excerpts of the Pentagon Papers — 7,000 pages of top-secret documents outlining the secret history of the Vietnam War. The Times exposé was based on documents secretly photocopied by Dan Ellsberg and Anthony Russo while they worked as Pentagon consultants at the RAND Corporation.
Ellsberg had been inspired to leak the documents by antiwar protesters. In fact, shortly before the Times first reported on the Pentagon Papers, Dan Ellsberg took part in an antiwar protest in Washington, D.C., 52 years ago today, on May Day 1971, as part of an affinity group with Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn.
— source democracynow.org | May 01, 2023