Once dubbed the “most dangerous man in America,” Daniel Ellsberg (1931–2023) was no ordinary father.
On June 13, 1971, the New York Times published the first installment of a set of highly classified documents that changed the course of American history. Secretly copied by a military analyst named Daniel Ellsberg, they electrified readers with their revelations of how Washington had snookered Congress and the public into supporting the Vietnam War – with billions of dollars, and tens of thousands of lives. In the immediate aftermath Ellsberg was arrested and charged under the Espionage Act. Two year later, however, the government’s proceedings against him fell apart, and all charges were dismissed.
Fast forward a half-century, and the story of the Pentagon Papers, as they became known, is familiar to anyone who has sat through a high school history or civics class. As for the man at its center, he spent the next fifty years resisting the powers that be as an anti-war activist and public intellectual.
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Diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer in February of this year, Ellsberg died on June 16. He was 92. Still, he was active as late as May, speaking with Politico about the dark history of American imperialism; the human cost of US military interventions abroad, the ever-present danger of nuclear warfare, and the insanity – not to mention immorality – of threatening mass murder in the name of democracy or national security.
In the spirit of Father’s Day, and in honor of a remarkable man who impacted not only his children but an entire nation, Plough’s Chris Zimmerman spoke with Daniel Ellsberg’s son Robert Ellsberg, author, editor, and publisher of Orbis Books.
To read the interview, click here.
Robert Ellsberg is the editor-in-chief and publisher of Orbis Books. He is the author and editor of several books, including the published letters and diaries of Dorothy Day.
Chris Zimmerman is a member of the Bruderhof, an international movement of Christian communities whose members are called to follow Jesus together in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount and of the first church in Jerusalem, sharing all our talents, income, and possessions (Acts 2 and 4).
With thanks to Plough, an independent publisher of books on faith, society, and the spiritual life, where this article originally appeared.
