It was forty years ago today,
Daniel Ellsberg brought the Prez to play,
They’d been going onward to raise a pile,
And they’re guaranteed to raise a smile,
So may I introduce to you,
The act you’ve known for all these years,
Ellberg’s papers helped the Prez go down.
Yes, forty years ago today (June 13, 1971) the New York Times published the first in a series about Robert McNamara’s classified report, which was prepared in order to learn how the United States had mired itself in the Vietnam War. On this 40th anniversary, the United States government is finally releasing the entire record…47 volumes, constituting over 7,000 pages prepared by no less than 36 “analysts”, including Ellsberg. According to today’s Minneapolis Star and Tribune, the Pentagon Papers “showed that the Johnson, Kennedy and prior administrations had been escalating the conflict in Vietnam while misleading Congress, the public and allies.”
To hear audio clips of President Nixon, to view various studies and to learn more about this turgid affair, go here:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB48/nixon.html
– Mark Erickson
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Here is the trailer for an excellent documentary about Ellsberg which came out in the last few years. This DVD is available many ways, the least expensive of which, for Portland residents, is to borrow it from the Multnomah County Library.
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