Ellsberg Credits Draft Resisters as Inspiration to Release Pentagon Papers
With Spielberg’s The Post film bringing renewed interest in Daniel Ellsberg, The Guardian recently brought whistleblowers Daniel Ellsberg and Edward Snowden together to discuss the inspirations for their acts, whether they would take the same risks again and the current assault on press freedom.
Ellsberg credits the young Americans who were willing to risk jail to resist the war in Vietnam as his inspiration to release the Pentagon Papers, and Snowden credits Ellsberg and the documentary that told his story – The Most Dangerous Man in America (co-directed by our directorJudith Ehrlich) – for inspiring his decision to expose NSA spying.
This interview is a telling reminder of how each person's actions count in the broader template we call history. Or as Ben Bradlee put it (as seen in The Post), news is history's first draft.