„New York Times“ riskierte Mitte Juni 1971 – also vor 50 Jahren- Auszüge aus der ultrageheimen Mc Namara-Studie (genannt „Pentagon Papers“) preiszugeben, die die damaligen Medienberichte radikal in Frage stellten.

Hans Högl

Damals war Daniel Ellsberg der Whistleblower. Ich verglich in meiner nicht publizierten Dissertation das Medienecho in der linksliberalen „Le Monde“ mit Kommentaren und Nachrichtentexten in der Nato-freundlichen „Frankfurter Allgemeinen“ in Hinblick auf Manipulation. Dazu ein andermal. Daniel Ellsbergs Sohn schrieb mir folgende Botschaft:

Michael Ellsberg: Today marks the 50th anniversary of the New York Times first publishing the Pentagon Papers.
Join Daniel Ellsberg on a live webinar today at 7:30PM EDT with Noam Chomsky, Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman, Barbara Myers, and Gar Alperovitz discussing the legacy of the Papers. Selected media coverage of the Pentagon Papers anniversary is here.

The Ground Truth Project and UMass Amherst have created a wonderful podcast that brings alive the history of Daniel’s action, The Whistleblower. UMass Amherst, which acquired Daniel’s archive, recently held a 3-day virtual conference on the legacy of the Papers, including a dialogue between Daniel and Edward Snowden. Recordings of the conference are here.

At age 90, Daniel’s still at it! He recently made an unauthorized disclosure of a still-classified top-secret study about US nuclear threats against China, which he’s been holding for over 50 years. The New York Times reported the leak here and coverage of the leak made international headlines.

Thank you,–Michael Ellsberg