Ellsberg graduated from Harvard in 1952, served as a Marine infantry commander (1953–56), then returned to Harvard for his Ph.D. An expert on crisis decision making at the Rand Corporation think tank, he was a consultant on nuclear weapons to the Pentagon and Kennedy White House, notably in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Early in the Vietnam War (1964–65), he was special assistant to the assistant secretary of defense responsible for Vietnam policy. He spent two years in South Vietnam as a State Department adviser (1965–67), then rejoined Rand and contributed to the Pentagon's internal classified history of the war ordered by Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara.

In October 1969, Ellsberg tried to release the secret Pentagon history to Congress, but lawmakers refused the material. Drawn more deeply into the antiwar movement, he provided the so‐called Pentagon Papers to the New York Times and Washington Post. Its June 1971 publication revealed a history of presidential failures and deceptions and was critically important in mobilizing public opposition to the war. President Richard M. Nixon and his national security adviser Henry Kissinger feared further leaks by Ellsberg. To silence and slander Ellsberg and block future “leaks,” they created the White House “Plumbers” unit. At Nixon's instigation, the unit conducted an illegal break‐in of Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office in Los Angeles in September 1971. The same “Plumbers” unit carried out the June 1972 Watergate burglary, which led to President Nixon's resignation in August 1974. Ellsberg was tried for espionage, but because of White House tampering, the federal judge dismissed the charges. During the 1970s and 1980s, Ellsberg lectured widely and was arrested for antiwar and antinuclear civil disobedience protests.

[See also Peace and Antiwar Movements.]

Bibliography

• Sanford Ungar, The Papers and the Papers, 1972.
• Peter Schrag, Test of Loyalty: Daniel Ellsberg and the Rituals of Secret Government, 1974

The Oxford Companion to American Military History. Copyright © 2000 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved.