Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light
propublica.org
Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light
1–10 of 60 posts
Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light
#2Wow. In an age of increasing scrutiny of journalists, particularly in regards to the leaking of classified documents, this is a really bad look. Journalists screwing over their sources is unacceptable in every case, we don't have any trouble understanding that when it comes to interviewing terrorists, I don't know why it's a question when it comes to this.
Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light
#3Wow. In an age of increasing scrutiny of journalists, particularly in regards to the leaking of classified documents, this is a really bad look. Journalists screwing over their sources is unacceptable in every case, we don't have any trouble understanding that when it comes to interviewing terrorists, I don't know why it's a question when it comes to this.
Some stories are bigger than sources. The 'victim', Ellsberg, would seem to agree.
As far as I remember, Ellsberg was a true believer for a long time and originally wanted the information (not all of the papers) out so America would double down on VN. He thought it was still winnable. He moderated at some point in the process. Sheehan wasn't going to wait for his navel gazing and made him a progressive hero.
Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light
#4Ellsberg's recent book The Doomsday Machine says the Pentagon Papers were his less-important material. His job at the Pentagon was nuclear policy, and he also had thousands of pages detailing that policy, which at the time was horrific. (The book goes into detail on just how horrific; much of it has been declassified now so he can source his claims.)
He decided to release the Vietnam papers first because he felt that if he released the nuclear papers, nobody would care about the Vietnam stuff.
He gave the nuclear documents to his brother, who first hid them in a compost bin. Then his brother decided that wasn't secure enough, and hid them in black plastic bags on the outskirts of the town dump. That turned out to be smart, since men in suits were seen poking rods into the compost pile the next day, but a freak storm washed that entire portion of the dump down a hill and the nuclear documents were lost. They spent a year sifting through trash looking for them.
Ellsberg's wife called that storm a miracle from God, because in Ellsberg's opinion he certainly would have spent the rest of his life in prison for making the nuclear papers public.
Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light
#5Ellsberg's recent book The Doomsday Machine says the Pentagon Papers were his less-important material. His job at the Pentagon was nuclear policy, and he also had thousands of pages detailing that policy, which at the time was horrific. (The book goes into detail on just how horrific; much of it has been declassified now so he can source his claims.) He decided to release the Vietnam papers first because he felt that…
So, is anything from the nuclear documents in the book you mentioned? Or is it really all lost forever?
Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light
#6Ellsberg's recent book The Doomsday Machine says the Pentagon Papers were his less-important material. His job at the Pentagon was nuclear policy, and he also had thousands of pages detailing that policy, which at the time was horrific. (The book goes into detail on just how horrific; much of it has been declassified now so he can source his claims.) He decided to release the Vietnam papers first because he felt that…
Nuclear conflict is inherently horrific, but I would hope we were (and are) willing to do appalling things to deter a nuclear attack on the US.
Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light
#7Ellsberg's recent book The Doomsday Machine says the Pentagon Papers were his less-important material. His job at the Pentagon was nuclear policy, and he also had thousands of pages detailing that policy, which at the time was horrific. (The book goes into detail on just how horrific; much of it has been declassified now so he can source his claims.) He decided to release the Vietnam papers first because he felt that…
Nuclear conflict is inherently horrific, but I would hope we were (and are) willing to do appalling things to deter a nuclear attack on the US.
This is assuming the content of the papers is standard MAD. We don’t know what was in them.
Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light
#8Ellsberg's recent book The Doomsday Machine says the Pentagon Papers were his less-important material. His job at the Pentagon was nuclear policy, and he also had thousands of pages detailing that policy, which at the time was horrific. (The book goes into detail on just how horrific; much of it has been declassified now so he can source his claims.) He decided to release the Vietnam papers first because he felt that…
So, is anything from the nuclear documents in the book you mentioned? Or is it really all lost forever?
The documents themselves are lost, but Ellsberg was deeply involved in nuclear strategy and in the past few years has been able to get public declassified sources for much of what he remembered. The previously-classified history of US nuclear strategy is mostly what the book is about. (See my cousin comment for a short outline.)
Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nuclear conflict is inherently horrific, but I would hope we were (and are) willing to do appalling things to deter a nuclear attack on the US.
This is assuming the content of the papers is standard MAD. We don’t know what was in them.
The book is mostly about that content, which has been largely declassified now. It goes into quite a bit of detail.
It was not just MAD. It included massive retaliation against every city in both the USSR and China in response to minor conventional battles, which they calculated would also kill most people in Europe from fallout. It gave independent launch authority to regional military commanders. First strike was part of the strategy, and was threatened on multiple occasions.
The US has still not disavowed first strike.
Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nuclear conflict is inherently horrific, but I would hope we were (and are) willing to do appalling things to deter a nuclear attack on the US.
This is assuming the content of the papers is standard MAD. We don’t know what was in them.
Standard MAD* was insane already. The governments of nation states were willing to toast the human race to preserve control by the elites of pieces of land and the illusion of a nation. They still are.
Even if you are taken over by a dictatorship, you can struggle against it afterwards. Some dictatorships were even somewhat positive (e.g. Napoleon Bonaparte) even though I would have sided with the pro-republican movement. There's no future if everyone is dead.
* The funny thing about MAD is that even though it's standard terminology today, that was the name coined by its detractors.