Daniel Ellsberg

Daniel Ellsberg was an American military analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971, revealing that successive U.S. administrations had misled the public about the Vietnam War.

Pentagon Papers: A classified U.S. government history of political and military involvement in Vietnam, completed in 1969. Ellsberg copied this study and supplied it to newspapers in 1971.
RAND Corporation: An American research organization that conducts analysis for governments, businesses, and other institutions. Ellsberg worked at RAND while studying and handling the classified Vietnam history.
Anthony Russo: An aerospace analyst and antiwar activist who helped Daniel Ellsberg copy the Pentagon Papers. Russo shared the copying effort and stood beside Ellsberg in the criminal case.
Prior restraint: Government action that prevents speech or publication before it occurs. The Nixon administration’s injunctions against newspapers raised this constitutional issue.
Espionage Act of 1917: A U.S. federal law that criminalizes specified conduct involving national defense information and aiding foreign adversaries. Prosecutors charged Ellsberg under this law for retaining and transmitting classified documents.
New York Times Co. v. United States: A 1971 Supreme Court case that rejected the Nixon administration’s attempt to block newspaper publication of the Pentagon Papers. The case tested whether Ellsberg’s leak could be stopped through prior restraint.
Office of the Secretary of Defense: A U.S. Department of Defense office that supports the secretary’s policy and management responsibilities. Ellsberg’s work there connected him to the Pentagon Papers project.
Neil Sheehan: An American journalist who obtained the Pentagon Papers for The New York Times and reported on them. Ellsberg gave Sheehan a copy that enabled the Times’s publication.
Freedom of the press in the United States: The constitutional and legal protections for publishing information in the United States. The Supreme Court’s Pentagon Papers ruling tested press freedom against claims of national security.
Classified information: Government information restricted from public access under an official security classification system. The Pentagon Papers were classified, creating the legal conflict at the center of Ellsberg’s actions.

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