The Papers
In 1969, Daniel Ellsberg was a military analyst at the RAND Corporation with top-secret clearance. He had helped write a 7,000-page classified study commissioned by the Department of Defence that documented the full, unvarnished history of American involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. What the study revealed was devastating: multiple administrations had systematically lied to the public about the war's progress, its costs, and its purpose.
Ellsberg had believed in the war. He had served in Vietnam. But reading those pages changed something in him irreversibly. He later said: "I felt I was looking at the history of twenty years of crime."
The Decision
Ellsberg spent months photocopying the entire study — 7,000 pages, by hand, night after night, at an advertising agency whose Xerox machine he borrowed after hours. His children helped collate the pages. He knew that leaking classified material would almost certainly result in criminal prosecution and prison time.
He tried to work through official channels first. He brought the documents to senators, including William Fulbright, chair of the Foreign Relations Committee. No one acted. The political risk was too high.
In 1971, Ellsberg gave the papers to The New York Times. The Nixon administration obtained a federal injunction to stop publication — the first time in American history the government had achieved prior restraint of a newspaper. The case went to the Supreme Court, which ruled 6-3 in favour of the press. The Pentagon Papers were published in full.
The Fallout
Ellsberg was charged under the Espionage Act and faced 115 years in prison. The charges were dismissed in 1973 after it was revealed that Nixon's operatives had broken into his psychiatrist's office and wiretapped him illegally — the same "plumbers" unit that later carried out the Watergate break-in.
The Pentagon Papers accelerated the end of the Vietnam War and fundamentally changed the relationship between the government and the press.
What This Means for You
Ellsberg did not blow the whistle impulsively. He tried every proper channel first. When those channels failed, he accepted the consequences and acted anyway. If you are carrying knowledge of something wrong — in your workplace, your community, your circle — his story says that speaking the truth is worth the cost. But it also says to be strategic about how and when you speak.