Daniel Ellsberg’s Last Words

I understand why the New York Times spotlighted the scary aspect of its "exit" interview with Daniel Ellsberg. But the man who bravely leaked the Pentagon Papers and has long fought for nuclear sanity in the world -- and who recently announced that his doctors have given him only months to live -- made it clear that as, "I face the end of my life, I feel joy and gratitude."

I know Berkeley resident Dan -- I've had the good fortune to interview this very smart, deep man and to speak with him over meals. He's best friends with my good friend Peter Dale Scott​. (When I was young, I once picked up Dan at the Los Angeles airport -- he was scheduled to speak at a big anti-nuke rally the next day -- and at his request drove him by the RAND Corporation, where he had stolen the Pentagon Papers, to freak out the think tank. But that's a different story.) He's also featured in the powerful documentary "The Movement and the Madman" by my brother Stephen Talbot​, which will premiere Tuesday evening on PBS. The documentary shows how the antiwar movement -- democracy in the streets -- stopped President Nixon and his foreign policy advisor Henry Kissinger from pursuing the nuclear "madman" strategy in Vietnam.

So, as "scary" as it is that the U.S. (and now Putin) has repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons in the last 70 or so years, human sanity so far has prevailed. And this restraint sometimes was compelled by brave people like Dan Ellsberg and the popular movements that he and those like him have spearheaded.

As I wrote to Dan today, he continues to inspire me. He's made the world a better place, despite it all, even when it doesn't feel that way.

Daniel Ellsberg