Daniel Ellsberg

Daniel Ellsberg was born in Chicago, Illinois. He graduated first in his class in economics from Harvard University and served as a company commander in the United States Marine Corps. He earned a doctorate in economics from Harvard, formulating the "Ellsberg paradox" in decision theory, and joined the RAND Corporation in 1959 as a strategic nuclear war analyst.

While serving as a high-level Pentagon consultant in South Vietnam, Ellsberg realized that four successive presidential administrations had systematically lied to the American public about the Vietnam War's progress and objectives. In 1969, with Anthony Russo, he began photocoping the 7,000-page top-secret study of US decision-making in Vietnam. In June 1971, he leaked the Pentagon Papers to Neil Sheehan at The New York Times and later The Washington Post. Facing 115 years in prison under the Espionage Act, his charges were dismissed in 1973 when government wiretappings and break-ins by the Nixon White House "Plumbers" were uncovered. Ellsberg spent the next fifty years as a tireless advocate for nuclear disarmament and government transparency.