Why I Did It!: An Interview with Daniel Ellsberg

An interview with Daniel Ellsberg concerning government security, government hypocrisy, and the pentagon papers

Manuel Klausner & Henry Hohenstein from the June 1973 issue

(Page 6 of 6)

ELLSBERG: Yes. The draft clearly made it possible for the Executive branch to get into a very large ground combat involvement without calling up reserves or without going to Congress for a new mobilization of resources, and that the absence of the draft would make it much more difficult for future administrations to involve us in future conflicts.

REASON: Do you have any view on the question of reparations to Vietnam?

ELLSBERG: Obviously, I think by any standard of justice we owe a tremendous amount to the rebuilding of South Vietnam and North Vietnam: keeping in mind, by the way, that an enormous majority of our bombs were dropped on South Vietnam-our supposed ally-rather than on North Vietnam. Nevertheless, I think they would be very foolish to accept that money at the price of a large American infrastructure of AID technicians who were going to decide-in a supposedly nonpolitical way-how the money was to be spent and who was to spend it.

REASON: When you say we owe reparations, what about somebody who opposed the war and was a consistent opponent of the American intervention in Vietnam-do you think he should be required to give of his money to help rebuild either North or South Vietnam?

ELLSBERG: I don't know too many people who haven't paid taxes to support the war, so. I don't know too many, then, who have a very strong moral position on which to say they are not willing to devote any part of their tax money to rebuilding.

REASON: Do you think it would be at all proper to look to those in positions of responsibility, in terms of guiding national policies in the war, to be personally culpable, so that they should have to pay reparations from their own personal fortunes-say Nixon, or MacNamara-that they should have to pay personally for the damage and devastation in Vietnam.

ELLSBERG: It's a very interesting suggestion. For instance, perhaps, a few years of personal service of the kind that they've often talked about, devoted to putting one stone on top of another in some of the villages in Vietnam, would be quite rehabilitating for them. Nevertheless, I wouldn't say that that should be involuntary. I would think if it were to do them or their society much good it should reflect their own new awareness, which I think is yet to blossom in their hearts, that they have misspent a good part of their lives and that something like this would be a better use of some of their remaining years than what they're now doing.

REASON: There are a number of American conservatives that deplore your conduct and Anthony Russo's conduct in disclosing the contents of the Pentagon Papers to the American public. They feel this is an unpatriotic act that really was in defiance of American policy and you should be punished therefore-but at the same time there are many American conservatives who have applauded disclosures of confidential information and leaks in other situations such as the Otepka case. It was felt that the disclosure was one that would aid in the battle to cleanse the State Department of Communists. Could you comment on that?

ELLSBERG: Well, that's two special viewpoints I think, that don't exhaust the points of view on this situation. To see our act as unpatriotic or against American policy is, I think, to identify the government with the Executive branch-indeed with the President-and to take not just the position, "my country right or wrong," but, "my President right or wrong." And that's really a position that wipes out the distinctions between American democracy and monarchic or autocratic forms of government. To see our act as a clearly disobedient or disloyal one is still to equate loyalty with obedience to a single boss. And that wasn't the founding theory of our American government. It's cerxainly possible to see our act as mistaken or misguided somehow, but that judgment has to be made in the light of the rather complex obligations that any American should recognize toward the Constitution, towards several branches of government, towards his countryman, toward humane feelings. I think that it is hard to apply that more complicated test and conclude that we did the wrong thing.

REASON: I'd also like to ask just briefly about finances, Dan-could you address that subject for our readers?

ELLSBERG: Well, yes. The defense is not being financed by the state, but I guarantee you all of the prosecution is. The government has spent two to three million dollars already on the case and that comes from taxpayers of course. We have some taxpayers also contributing to our side of the case. The defense has cost over $600,000 already and may well come to over three-quarters of a million dollars before it is through. The defense relies entirely on private contributions and we'll be happy to get any, addressed to The Pentagon Papers Defense Fund, 125 West Fourth Street, Los Angeles.

REASON: Let me ask you a concluding question, Dan, that fits into the context of one of your answers a couple of moments ago-in talking about the obligations of American citizens and the complex questions of viewing the propriety of your conduct. Your attorney, Leonard Boudin, stated in his opening argument, at the commencement of trial, that it was not only the right of an American citizen and a former government official to give the information to Congress that you disclosed, but that it was your duty.

ELLSBERG: Yes. That I felt intuitively at the time. The more I've learned about the Constitution and the ideas that underlay it, the more I've realized that my intuition was valid. The whole classification system as it exists and as it is practiced now, the system that has inevitably led to the suppressing of a billion pages of information is an unconstitutional system. I think a limited system that would be constitutionally valid could be devised, but that remains to be done. And the current system is a clear violation of the principles of checks and balances in the government and a violation of the First Amendment. Moreover, I think our constitutional principles are very sound on this point. Secrecy on this scale is incompatible with democratic government, and I think not only incompatible, but subversive of it. A republican, democratic form of government cannot survive with the practice of Executive secrecy that we have experienced in the last quarter of a century. We must roll back that practice of secrecy if we are to undo a betrayal of the American Revolution.