As publication approached, Ellsberg pleaded with Sheehan to give him a bit of advance notice so he could take precautions. Sheehan used that to secretly copy the papers. And it was eventually revealed that Sheehan had seriously betrayed Ellsberg’s confidence: Ellsberg told him he could read but not copy the documents, but let him have a key to his apartment. He faced charges under the Espionage Act by himself, though he eventually beat them. (My colleague David Corn remembers the episode, and how it changed his life, here.)Įllsberg was not a beneficiary of the Times’ legal gumption. Sheehan and the Times won a Pulitzer for their coverage and for standing up to the Nixon administration, which went to court to stop them from publishing the documents.

In Ellsberg’s case, the reporter he dealt with was Neil Sheehan, the New York Times reporter also famous for his history of the Vietnam War, A Bright Shining Lie. Ellsberg started it off noting, with a smile, that “I have yet to meet a whistleblower who has a good feeling about the newspaper they dealt with, or the reporter they dealt with.” Boom. It was clear from the outset that this was not the kind of panel where journalists congratulate each other for the great work they do.

Now out and barred from traveling without the government’s permission, she sat in her living room in Corpus Christi, Texas, wearing a T-shirt that read “Grow Food, Love Hard,” and a weary expression. On another screen was Reality Winner, who, as a twenty-something National Security Agency translator, leaked classified documents about Russian interference in the US election, and was sentenced to prison time for it. (You can watch the whole thing here.) He towered over the room on a giant Zoom screen, calling in from his home just a couple of miles away. You could have heard a pin drop, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that moment since I learned of Ellsberg’s death last Friday.Įllsberg was a speaker at a conference, the Logan Symposium on Investigative Reporting, at the University of California, Berkeley. It’s from just four weeks ago, when-in hospice care, knowing he had only weeks to live-he comforted a young whistleblower who’d come to conclude her act was pointless. You remember the incredible impact he had on the way Americans thought about the war in Vietnam when he leaked the Pentagon Papers back in 1971. Some of you have powerful memories of Daniel Ellsberg. Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

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