Daniel Ellsberg To O'Donnell On Pentagon Papers: 'We Are In The Midst Of Several Vietnams' (VIDEO)

Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times, appeared on "The Last Word" on the 40th anniversary of their initial publication to talk to Lawrence O'Donnell about their impact and their legacy.

The initial publication of the highly classified report on the Johnson administration's secret discussions about Vietnam on June 13, 1971 prompted a firestorm, and led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling on press freedom. On Monday, exactly 40 years later, the National Archives officially began releasing the now-declassified Papers.

"What do you make of the official release of the papers now?" O'Donnell asked. Ellsberg said that he hoped the release would spur people to read the Papers again.

"We are in the midst right now of two, three, several Vietnams," he said. "The Afghan War is almost a replay of Vietnam and I think people don't understand it as well as they could if actually they re-read the Pentagon Papers."

O'Donnell asked if he thought the release of the Papers had helped hasten the end of the Vietnam War. Ellsberg said that, while the release hadn't affected Nixon's view of the war, it had made him worry that Ellsberg also had material on his administration's actions in Vietnam. His response to this was to order a series of then-highly illegal actions against Ellsberg which, unlike Vietnam, did help bring his administration down.

(Ellsberg repeated the startling fact that the wiretaps and break-ins that Nixon authorized are all legal now.)

"I was part of a chain of events along with a lot of other people that ended the war," he said.

"What was it like to turn against your friends in this world [the RAND Corporation] that you were working in?" O'Donnell asked.

"Nobody's asked me that," Ellsberg said. "it was a very anguishing experience...however, there was a war's worth of lies at stake, and I think that shortening the war was something that I did the best I could."

WATCH:

Comments

[addisonsteele]

05:48 PM on 06/15/2011

I am still wondering about the eleven words that the government refused to declassify.

[Tierce]

03:09 PM on 06/15/2011

History repeats its' self.

[celticfireusa]

09:01 AM on 06/15/2011

He right we can not win or quit... stuck in mud.....

[1tenn]

08:08 AM on 06/15/2011

so the wiretaps tricky d. used are now legal? i know are freedoms are less each and every year but this is a surprise .

[carllafong]

08:37 AM on 06/15/2011

It must be called the "Patriot Act" because it helps prevent patriots from blowing any whistles.

[joetherealist]

04:37 PM on 06/15/2011

See: Patriot Act...

[cshae89546]

06:27 AM on 06/15/2011

Bet old Danny boy never thought he would again see the day when a Democrat was CLEARLY responsible for all the wars. Oh, thats right. John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson started Vietnam, but the liberal media made sure poor old Richard Nixon got to be the villian.

[joetherealist]

04:39 PM on 06/15/2011

Kennedy should not be included in that comment, he rejected Vietnam out of hand, maybe at the expense of his life. Johnson was so afraid if what happened to Kennedy that he went with the program.

[celticjag]

06:03 PM on 06/15/2011

FYI,Truman underwrote France's return to Indochina after WWII and assigned U.S. military personnel in what was to become Vietnam. Eisenhower oversaw the subversion of the Geneva Accords of 1954 and the expansion of U.S. military into Vietnam.

[jimbob1234]

06:02 AM on 06/15/2011

when i first saw the pic at the top i thaught it was going to be a story on what odonell was going to look like in a few years

[comhunt00]

05:57 AM on 06/15/2011

Why isn't he in jail ? ? ? .............Think about it............Why, Why, Why ? ? ?

[kasel1]

05:03 AM on 06/15/2011

Isn't it interesting to notice that WWI, WWII, the Korean War, and Vietnam were all begun under Democratic Administraions? Even more informative to recall how Democrats sought to limit black rights after the Civil War, and that they were responsible for discrimination against Germans and Japanese Americans during the world wars? I smell hypocracy.

[svvalkyrie]

04:51 AM on 06/15/2011

Until there is a DRAFT, noone will care.

[sarahmee]

04:12 AM on 06/15/2011

The report was meant to be the Pentagon’s top-secret documents on the Vietnam War in June of 1967. Former US military and employee of the government-funded RAND Corporation (Research ANd Development), Daniel Ellsberg researched the study within the Pentagon on America’s involvement in Vietnam and then sought to expose the truth by leaking the documents to the New York Times. http://bit.ly/lWZHeZ

[George Bertha]

04:06 AM on 06/15/2011

Look, war sucks period! I wish there were a way to resolve disputes w/o armed conflict!

[flyingfortresb17]

01:45 AM on 06/15/2011

Ellsberg stopped an illegal war int he first place. We went to war in Viet Nam to support a corrupt and vicious government administration. We violated several agreements which were made during World War II that were made by the United States with the Viet Nam General Giap and Ho Chi Minh. We turned our backs on them when the Japaneses were defeated but not returned to Japan. As for Afghanistan we would have been out of there had President Bush had not invaded Iraq and put Afghanistan on the back burner.

[knarf714]

12:55 AM on 06/15/2011

Of course Mr. Ellsberg takes no resposibility for the millions of people slaughtered by his north vietnamese buddies after we abandoned the south vietnamese. And he repeats the BIG lie that they helped end the war...

[Danny Fry]

01:53 AM on 06/15/2011

you are a toad

[patchesowl]

12:13 AM on 06/15/2011

As the nation moves ever closer to a “police state” mentality, citizens should be concerned sufficiently to find the courage to reject the disentigration of our Constitutional rights. At the point where we presently find ourselves we’ve surpassed Hitler’s Germany. Rendition, Legal right of police to search your homes, offices, vehicles, garbage and arrest you on suspicion even where no crime has been engaged. We had the criminal Presidency of G.W. Bush and Obama has proven himself to be no better. The worst part of it all is there are no alternatives and the Democratic and Republican Parties have both demonstrated since Bill Clinton that they’re one in the same. Neither party has been effective in properly structuring the nation to weather difficult times, neither has prepared the national infrastructure for the twenty-first century, we’re out competed in every field except weapons proliferation and such production serves only enrichening 1/10 of the population.

[Michael Stack]

12:13 AM on 06/15/2011

YEA !,.and every blasted one of those wars goes against the laws put forth by our founding fathers, but i guess that goes right out the window now since we lowerd the bar on presidental restrictions !, .....boy, are we scrapeing the bottom of the barrel these days.