SpaceWar.com - Your World At War
Pentagon Papers whistleblower Ellsberg says he has terminal cancer
New York, March 3 (AFP) Mar 03, 2023
Daniel Ellsberg, the whistleblower who leaked the "Pentagon Papers" about the Vietnam War, has said doctors have given him around six months to live after diagnosing him with pancreatic cancer.

The former military analyst's release of thousands of documents to US media in 1971 revealed that successive United States administrations had lied to the public about the war.

The leak changed public perceptions of the conflict and was recounted in the 2017 Hollywood thriller "The Post," which detailed the nail-biting behind-the-scenes story of the publication of the papers by the Washington Post.

"On February 17, without much warning, I was diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer," Ellsberg, 91, said in a statement on Twitter Thursday.

"I'm sorry to report to you that my doctors have given me three to six months to live," he added.

Ellsberg wrote that he has chosen not to do chemotherapy as it offers no promise.

"I have assurance of great hospice care when needed," he added.

Ellsberg was a government consultant when he leaked 7,000 classified pages which determined -- contrary to the public assertions of US government officials -- that the Vietnam conflict was unwinnable.

The New York Times published excerpts until the administration of President Richard Nixon obtained a court injunction barring the newspaper from continuing to do so on national security grounds. The Washington Post then took up the mantle.

Ellsberg was charged under America's espionage act but the case ended in a mistrial in 1973 after illegal evidence gathering by the government came to light.

"When I copied the Pentagon Papers in 1969, I had every reason to think I would be spending the rest of my life behind bars. It was a fate I would gladly have accepted if it meant hastening the end of the Vietnam War, unlikely as that seemed (and was)," Ellsberg wrote in his statement Thursday.

"Yet in the end that action -- in ways I could not have foreseen, due to Nixon's illegal responses -- did have an impact on shortening the war," he added.

Ellsberg, a staunch anti-nuclear weapons campaigner published a massive tome about the nuclear threat seen from the inside, titled "The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner," in 2017.


ADVERTISEMENT




Space News from SpaceDaily.com
Russian space chief to meet NASA head for first time in eight years
BlackSky to supply satellite imagery and analytics for Latin American security operations
Cascade raises 59M to develop full stack satellite communications platform

24/7 Energy News Coverage
Palantir, the AI giant that preaches US dominance
China and US wrap first day of trade talks
'Food on table' outweighs health risks for Philippine e-waste dismantlers

Military Space News, Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense
North Korea warns US against pushing it to give up nukes
Iran vows stronger response if attacked again by US, Israel
Ukraine says Russian attacks targeted western city, home to airfield

24/7 News Coverage
BAE Systems completes delivery of NOAA and NASA space weather satellites for fall launch
Building blocks of life found in distant star system suggest origins in interstellar space
Deep-sea fish confirmed as a significant source of ocean carbonate



All rights reserved. Copyright Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.