Looking Back

From the William Davidson Digital Archive of Jewish Detroit History 

accessible at www.djnfoundation.org

78 | JULY 13 • 2023 

The Man Who Gave Us
the Pentagon Papers
T

he subject of classified 
documents has received a 
lot of press over the past few 
months. First and foremost, there is 
President Donald Trump’s handling, 
or rather mishandling, of top-secret 
documents at his Mar-
a-Lago retreat. Along 
the way, a few classified 
documents were also 
found at the homes of 
President Joe Biden and 
Vice President 
Mike Pence. 
Biden and 
Pence immediately accepted 
responsibility and handed 
the documents to the proper 
authorities. Stay tuned to see if 
Trump is innocent or guilty of 
federal charges that he illegally 
kept classified documents that 
should have stayed with the 
National Archives.
Recently, another story regarding 
classified documents was revisited in 
the national media. Daniel Ellsberg 
passed away on June 16, 2023, at the age 
of 92. Ellsberg was responsible for one 
of the most famous “leaks” of classified 
documents in U.S. history. 
Ellsberg was responsible for making 
public in 1971 what are now known 
as the “Pentagon Papers.” This leak 
of thousands of pages of classified 
documents exposed many lies that were 
told to Americans by federal authorities 
regarding the conduct of the Vietnam 
War, a war that divided the nation and 
cost 58,000 American lives. 
The Pentagon Papers led to a 
landmark Supreme Court case that 
protected freedom of the press, and their 
release is also considered a steppingstone 
toward the Watergate scandal (1972-

1974) that led 
to the resignation of 
President Richard 
Nixon.
Ellsberg had 
interesting 
connections to 
Detroit. He was 
born in Chicago, 
the son of Jewish 
immigrants from Russia. The family 
moved to Highland Park, Michigan, when 
he was a young boy. Ellsberg graduated 
from Bloomfield Hill’s Cranbrook in 1948 
and received a full academic scholarship 
to attend Harvard, where he earned his 
bachelor’s degree in 1952. He then studied 
at Cambridge University in England. 
After several educational draft 
deferments, Ellsberg felt the need to 
serve his country and joined the U.S. 
Marines Corps. Afterward, he earned a 

Ph.D. in economics at Harvard. 
Although Ellsberg was actually 
raised as a Christian Scientist, 
everyone, including Nixon, assumed 
he was strictly Jewish. After the 
Pentagon Papers were exposed, he 
faced vehement antisemitism. For 
example, Nixon was recorded saying 
“You can’t let the Jew [Ellsberg] 
steal that stuff and get away with it.” 
Ellsberg later declared that, by Nixon’s 
and Hitler’s definition, “I was a 
Jew, and I am a Jew.”
I found just a few mentions 
of Ellsberg in the William 
Davidson Digital Archive of 
Jewish Detroit History. At a 
Town Hall meeting in Detroit, 
he spoke about “why he risked 
prison to try to end the war” 
(March 15, 1974, JN). An 
article in the April 5, 2010, issue 
reviewed a documentary about 
Ellsberg: The Most Dangerous 
Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg 
and the Pentagon Papers. And, 
in the May 25, 1973, JN, editor 
Philip Slomovitz wrote about 
the antisemitism that Ellsberg 
faced during and after his trial for 
leaking the papers.
Ellsberg risked his career, prison 
and infamy for his decision to leak 
the Pentagon Papers. To some, 
Ellsberg is a villain. To others, he is a 
hero. The primary questions seem to be: 
Are we better off knowing the truth, and 
when does a citizen need to take a stand 
despite orders for secrecy? At the very 
least, perhaps, Ellsberg can be called a 
person of good conscience. 

Want to learn more? Go to the DJN Foundation 
archives, available for free at www.djnfounda-
tion.org.

Mike Smith
Alene and 
Graham Landau 
Archivist Chair

Daniel 
Ellsberg

CHRISTOPHER MICHEL

