Analyst Who Leaked The Pentagon Papers Was 92 – Deadline

Daniel Ellsberg, a onetime advisor to Nixon Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara and RAND company analyst who leaked the 7,000-word secret historical past of the Vietnam War referred to as the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times and Washington Post, has died. That, in line with a number of studies. He was 92.

Ellsberg’s choice to supply high secret report, formally referred to as the Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force, and the newspapers’ selections to publish it proved a turning level within the public’s angle towards the conflict, President Richard Nixon and belief within the authorities.

It was additionally a landmark second for a free press in America, because the ensuing Supreme Court choice upheld the best of the Times and Post to publish the paperwork.

The occasions attending the leak, publication and court docket conflict over the papers have been the topic of a number of movie and TV tasks, together with Steven Spielberg’s 2017 movie The Post during which Matthew Rhys performed Ellsberg.