A tireless campaigner in opposition to nuclear weapons, Ellsberg was recognized with pancreatic most cancers earlier this 12 months
Daniel Ellsberg, a former US navy analyst who revealed a years-long marketing campaign by Washington to cover the true scale of the Vietnam Warfare, has died. Ellsberg handed away after a brief battle with pancreatic most cancers, however continued his anti-war activism till his closing days.
Ellsberg died at his residence in Kensington, California, on Friday, based on a press release from his household. Ellsberg died painlessly, surrounded by his whole household, his son Robert mentioned.
Again in March, Ellsberg introduced that he had been recognized with inoperable pancreatic most cancers, and had been given between three and 6 months to stay. Ellsberg refused to bear chemotherapy, and in a closing assertion to the press and his supporters, warned that “the present danger of nuclear battle, over Ukraine, is as nice because the world has ever seen.”
Ellsberg condemned each the US and Russia for sustaining “first-use” nuclear doctrines, and referred to as nuclear battle plans and drills by each side “immoral and insane.”
“Dan Ellsberg was a real American hero,” journalist Glenn Greenwald wrote on Twitter, mentioning that he “knowingly risked life in jail to indicate his fellow residents that the US authorities was mendacity in regards to the battle in Vietnam.” Former CIA agent and fellow whistleblower John Kiriakou described Ellsberg as a “large of recent American historical past, of transparency, reality, and human rights,” including “we’d like extra Individuals like him.”
Earlier than he was an anti-nuclear campaigner, Ellsberg was a navy analyst with the RAND Company and a dedicated Chilly Warrior. In 1969, whereas collaborating in a government-ordered examine on the runup to the Vietnam Warfare, Ellsberg copied 1000’s of categorised paperwork detailing the US’ deepening involvement within the battle lengthy earlier than it overtly entered in 1964.
The papers, which had been revealed partially by the New York Instances, additionally confirmed how a number of US administrations lied to the American public about battlefield losses in Vietnam, whereas enlarging the scope of the battle with out public dialogue.
Ellsberg was prosecuted for espionage by the Nixon administration, however the expenses in opposition to him had been dropped following a mistrial in 1972. Members of Nixon’s White Home Particular Investigations Unit illegally wiretapped Ellsberg, earlier than occurring to commit the Watergate break-in that in the end resulted in Nixon’s resignation that very same 12 months.
“Once I spoke with Dan one month in the past – who knew nicely how few grains of sand remained in his glass – he assessed the chance of a nuclear alternate to be escalating past 10%,” NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden wrote on Twitter. “He had hoped to dedicate his closing hours to decreasing it, for all these he would depart behind. A hero to the tip.”
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