Daniel Ellsberg Speaks Out
The following interview originally appeared in the (Morris County NJ) Daily Record.
November 13, 2005
An icon in American History—Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War—will be speaking in NJ in the next several days, and many local residents will be listening carefully according to Chester resident Madelyn Hoffman. The Director of NJ Peace Action, Hoffman arranged for Ellsberg to keynote the organization’s annual fundraiser Saturday in Maplewood. In addition to speaking to NJ Peace Action about the parallels between the Vietnam War and our current involvement in Iraq, he will speak at Ramapo College and William Paterson University about the first amendment issues involved in his case.
Now 74, Ellsberg is thought by many to be a hero for helping to bring the Vietnam War to a close. Others still loyal to President Nixon, who resigned in disgrace, call him a traitor for flaunting the security classification on the thousands of documents he released to the NY Times, Boston Globe and Washington Post. There are also those who argue he acted on orders from the CIA, which was anxious to shift the blame for a failed war policy from the spymasters to the generals.
Recently, Ellsberg discussed these matters with me. Here are highlights of our conversation:
How do you liken Iraq to Vietnam?
Besides the obvious climate, cultural and terrain similarities and differences, there are important likenesses, including “what the French called the ambush problem, which we will never master. We had the Improvised Explosive Device (IED) problem in Vietnam. A lot of Americans lost their lives in Vietnam to American shells that didn’t go off when they hit the ground but were later detonated by the VC.” Most important, in Iraq, like in Vietnam, “we are still the foreigners, the invaders.”
Is Iraq a war for oil?
“We are going to be in Iraq far longer than we were in Vietnam, which was about 10 years, because there was no oil in Vietnam.”
Do you see a way out?
“There are lots of ways out, none of them very good. Will we really make things better by staying? The problem is that the President wants to stay. You have to want to get out, and he’s not remotely interested in hearing about it. If we stay, there isn’t going to be any improvement in the situation. I would set a definite timetable for getting out and not a long one. I would say three or six months and we’re totally out.” Subordinate to getting out, “I would make a secondary objective of averting civil war, but to think that can be done only by American occupation is hogwash. We’re not an effective broker because we are an occupier. We should get out of Iraq the way Gorbachav got out of Afghanistan,… DeGaulle got out of Algeria,… and Mendes-France got the French out of Indochina—FAST. Getting out doesn’t mean we don’t use diplomacy to try and moderate the situation and that we don’t contribute to the rebuilding of Iraq. Contributing $150 billion for rebuilding Iraq would be far cheaper than what we are doing now.”
Do you identify with Joe Wilson?
“Very much so. I admire Joe and am grateful to him for speaking out. I feel brotherly toward him as we’re both whistle-blowers. He didn’t have documents to prove his point, but he had something better—first-hand knowledge of the current administration and a career that allows him to speak with far greater authority than I could. Now Bush is attacking him the way Nixon did me."
Do you ever doubt your feelings about Iraq?
“Sure. I was mistaken when I went to Vietnam. I don’t think I’m always right.”
Do you ever second-guess your leaking of the Pentagon Papers?
“I only regret not putting them out a lot earlier, but people have to be ready to receive this information.”
Do you ever doubt your conclusions about Vietnam, especially when looking back on those film clips of the American Embassy being evacuated in ’75?
“That was horrible and disgraceful. Abandoning our friends, the Vietnamese that worked with us, was dishonorable. I have personal friends who were left there. One had worked with us for years, but President Thieu imprisoned him for four years for criticizing the war effort. Then the communists put him in jail for another three years for working with the CIA, which he did. He is a good friend, whom I’ll be seeing in two weeks. As late as March, ’75 the US could have arranged for an orderly departure taking with us 100,000-150,000 Vietnamese that had worked closely with us who wanted to leave. The problem was Ambassador Graham Martin denied the situation was so grave and so those steps weren’t taken. In my opinion, had it not been for Watergate, I think Nixon would have kept the bombing going and the war would have continued another seven years. It was better to end it sooner.”
What price did you pay for leaking the documents? Had you foreseen it?
“I gave up my career. I could never work again in my field without my security clearance, but I figured on that. Other than that there wasn’t much of a price in my case, though there usually is for a whistle-blower. Nixon couldn’t effectively prosecute me, because they broke the law trying to gather evidence against me. Their branding me as notorious enabled me to earn my living on the lecture circuit and to sell my book. I didn’t anticipate losing all my former friends from work, but I understood they couldn’t risk their jobs.
“The people who think that opposing a president is treason are mistaken and have a shallow understanding of patriotism. We are at risk of losing this republic in the short run. I’m not saying we’re on a creeping path to dictatorship, what I'm saying is if another 9/11 occurs and frightens the American people greatly, the administration will see it as an opportunity for closing down our civil liberties in this country. They saw the first 9/11 as an opportunity to go to war in Iraq. I think they’ll see the next 9/11 as an opportunity to pass a new Patriot Act that’ll make the first one look like the Bill of Rights. If that happens, I only hope people will remember the Bill of Rights and its particulars because it has been the bedrock of what has been properly called our noble experiment.”
Brad Kennedy is the author of the novel BETRAYAL: Will Stone in Vietnam. Austin, TX: Plain View Press, 2008.