In Memory of a Man Named Daniel
In Memory of a Man Named Daniel
Daniel Ellsberg
By Steven Schmidt
June 17, 2023
The moon was bright that night as I visited Daniel Ellsberg at his house on the beach in Southern California. It was mid 1970 and Dan was surrounded by boxes. "Papers," he called them. He was packing to leave for Cambridge and a new position at MIT and he was worried that night as he showed me the study he had put together at the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica.
As we sorted through documents I noticed some had Top Secret stamped on some of them. I learned later that these were part of the 7000 page, forty plus volume report soon to be called the "Pentagon Papers."
Dan spoke of President Nixon and famed advisor, Henry Kissinger with first-hand knowledge. He mentioned he had met with Kissinger recently at Nixon's San Clemente estate. I remember his fear, both that Nixon and Kissinger were repeating mistakes of previous administrations as "the Papers" demonstrated, and how the truth needed to go public. He broke off from the packing and said let's go, "I need to swim".
Dan was depressed, I knew, and I was not going to convince him not to go into the loudly crashing night surf. I watched as he plunged into the waves. He then reappeared for a moment in the moonlight. He swam straight out, then disappeared. I waited on shore looking out at the dark ocean. Time passed, no sign of Dan. I began worrying. Is this the end of Dan Ellsberg? Did I just witness Dan ending it all? Did a riptide take him? I walked up and down the beach searching. Suddenly, Dan walked out of the surf, nodded then sprinted back toward the house. He quickly shifted back into work mode. Something happened, he had new resolve.
Today as I reflect on the life of Dan Ellsberg and the announcement of his death, I can say he lived life like few others. He pursued the truth and facts in a way that was astounding and committed. He went on to prove in his actions that he was brave to put his life on the line for the sake of the American people. His decision was purposeful. He thought deeply about the consequences. That night under the moon I saw his fear, and I saw his resolve.
A few months later, when Daniel released the Pentagon Papers to a NY Times writer, Neil Sheehan, the truth came out. Dan's history of the war study subsequently led to the end of the Nixon presidency and, as a consequence, the end of the Vietnam War. Dan would later say the Pentagon Papers themselves didn't directly end the war, but the American people learned of the “evidence of a quarter-century of aggression, broken treaties, deceptions, stolen elections, lies, and murder”. This, with Nixon's resignation, brought on the end of the war.
I learned over the course of our relationship that Dan Ellsberg was gifted, literally. I still say he is the smartest man I've ever known. His 2002 book "Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers" is a must read. "On the evening of October 1, 1969, I walked out past the guards' desk at the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica," he writes, "carrying a briefcase filled with top secret documents, which I planned to photocopy that night… How I came to do this is the focus of this memoir." Dan's memoir is a true American story.
Beyond the Pentagon Papers and resulting demise of the Nixon presidency, Dan Ellsberg's follow-on 2017 book "The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner" later explained the inner machinations of the nuclear war complex. He was, as a younger man, a systems man and followed orders. His nuclear war gaming was a Pentagon nuclear plan that he, as an old man, brought into the light with this revelatory book. The extent of humanity's threat to life on earth is part of Dan Ellsberg's legacy now.
Daniel Ellsberg's life is a testament to what generations to come have to deal with -- perpetual wars, the realities of nuclear weapons, modern states with awesome powers for good and bad. Dan Ellsberg revealed and pointed us to harsh realities.
Will we listen to Dan Ellsberg's message that he, risking all, brought to us?
Daniel Ellsberg, after all is said and done, was a man who taught us. He was a man of peace. Dan was a believer in the power each of us has to make a difference and move toward a better world.
-- Steven J Schmidt / Founder/Siterunner of GreenPolicy360
* https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Dan_Ellsberg_-_the_world_is_in_your_hands.png
End of Life Thoughts
Dan Ellsberg Reflects, as we do too...
Steven Schmidt, GreenPolicy360 Siterunner:
Yes, as I am reading last words from Dan I know I need to write more about Dan Ellsberg and the time we shared, days long past but still here with reverberations of war and the costs of war. Memories of a student activist in Dan's house on the beach, saying goodbye, packing what later would be called the Pentagon Papers.
The war and lies about the war were there in writing, a history commissioned by Robert McNamara, source material, 'cable traffic', secrets...
When I met Dan Ellsberg he was no longer a gung ho Marine with a 45 strapped to his hip. He was, he told me, a different man before he went to Vietnam. He changed, he was changed and our nation was convulsed by the war. The price was paid in blood and treasure as the nation's 'moral authority' was lost. The costs of the war continues to be paid today even as Vietnam is now a trading partner of the U.S. and vets take tours of old haunts, battlefields in the south and north of Vietnam. The lush countryside, the marshes, the rainforests, the delta... the Agent Orange, the B52s, 'Rolling Thunder', the devastation and the millions of deaths in the region are remembered. Memories are everywhere there - and here.
At least we didn't use a nuclear weapon as years later it was revealed we came close, very close, to using...
Today, in Ukraine, in Russia, it would be a different world of danger and threat, and craziness, if the U.S. had used the Bomb in Asia, as Ellsberg who was a nuclear war planner for the government, later wrote about in detail. After he wrote "Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers", Dan wrote "The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner" and it is on my mind just now, before the sun rises here in Florida.
A few mile from my abode is Fort MacDill, the U.S. headquarters of Special Operations Command, worldwide command and control ops. Yesterday the international news reported that Russian Federation president Putin was moving "tactical nuclear weapons" to Belarus and again threatening with his nuclear arsenal continuing a new version, a "3.0 version of the Cold War. The nuclear threat is, as experts write and others report, at it greatest risk since the height of the Cold War. Here one can say MacDill is a 'rich targets', as command and control systems and 'beheading' are in the vernacular of nuclear war planners.
Again, I look back at when Nixon and Kissinger and the nuclear war planners were ready to launch... and I thank God, today, that the room in the White House where they were huddling and talking about 'sending a message' was not a harbinger of nuclear 'end of times' going forward. Right now, I open the Doomsday Machine book that Dan gave me and I look again at the inscription: "12-25-17 To Steven Schmidt - Wed need the Moratorium again ! Dan Ellsberg"
And a now I see Dan post forwarded on Twitter where he is saying he still has hope...
- All the young activists rising up give me hope as I leave my life. As the movement against the Vietnam War showed,
- young people can save lives when they make their care known in action. Keep going. The world is in your hands.
As Dan muses of his approaching death, I think back to his 2017 'Doomsday' book on nuclear planning and danger -- and I think back to the late 1960s, talks with Dan, new knowledge he was passing to me as a college student, a founder and activist representing the Vietnam Moratorium Committee, traveling, speaking, and organizing across America and on to Europe for peace work, an international peace conference, and then moving into environmental protection work.
All along I watched Dan as he dealt with life as a 'whistleblower' and attempted to tell the American people the truth, the McNamara-commissioned history of the Vietnam war as it was, without the cover ups, lies, and deceit. The truth came out. The repercussions continue... Dan Ellsberg risked it all to tell the truth to the people.
* https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2023/03/23/amanpour-ellsberg-pentagon-papers.cnn
* https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Dan_Ellsberg_-_2017.png
"We need the Moratorium again..."
-- Daniel Ellsberg to Steven Schmidt, 2017
Doomsday Machine
by Daniel Ellsberg
GreenPolicy360 Siterunner / SJS:
Dan and his work, especially the Vietnam war history he did at the Rand Corp that became known as the Pentagon Papers, were a central part of my work in Moratorium organizing. As the Vietnam Moratorium became the largest anti-war action, we impacted Nixon who, as historic documents and revelations later reported, chose not to use nuclear weapons due to the depth of public support for the Moratorium. Dan's work had and continues to have lasting impact...
Vietnam Moratorium - California
My memories of Dan beginning in 1969 comprise an anti-war and anti-nuke coming of age story...
Dan's student friend and years later, GreenPolicy360's/Strategic Demands' founder-siterunner:
- Steven Schmidt, 1969
- University of Southern California
