Daniel Ellsberg, the whistleblower who leaked the Pentagon Papers figure, holds up a copy of a book entitled "The Senate Watergate Report" as he appears as a panelist at a conference on the Central Intelligence Agency and covert activities on Friday, Sept. 13, 1974 in Washington. (photo: Henry Griffin/AP)
Daniel
Ellsberg: Kennedy Resisted 'Nuclear Cultist' Joint Chiefs
By MintPress News
03 February 16
Daniel Ellsberg argues that the Vietnam War and the U.S. covert
war in Laos could have been much larger if Kennedy hadn’t resisted the military
after the disastrous 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion.
MintPress
News is proud to host “Lied to Death,” a 13-part
audio conversation between famed whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and social
justice activist Arn Menconi.
Menconi
wrote that these interviews are a “mixture of historical, political science and
Dan’s sixty-year scholarly analysis as a former nuclear planner for Rand
Corporation.”
For
more information on the interview and Ellsberg, see the introduction to this series.
Chapter
5: Vietnam War a ‘foreign-instigated war,’ ‘not a civil war’
In this chapter of “Lied to Death,” Daniel
Ellsberg continues to explore President John F. Kennedy’s involvement with the
Vietnam War and other military conflicts in Asia, including his resistance to
the use of nuclear weapons and ground troops, a topic also discussed in Chapter 4.
The
whistleblower revealed that most of the military leadership advising Kennedy
were inherited from President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In general, they strongly
encouraged Kennedy to commit to the use of ground troops and sought
opportunities to use nuclear weapons. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, in particular,
who Ellsberg calls “nuclear cultists,” believed that only the use of nuclear
weapons would prevent a defeat similar to the one U.S. forces suffered in
Korea.
Ellsberg
says Kennedy resisted escalation of both the Vietnam War (which he argues could
have expanded if Kennedy had committed ground troops earlier, per the Joint
Chiefs’ guidance), and America’s covert war in Laos. However, Kennedy resisted
the military due to its mishandling of the “Bay of Pigs invasion,” a failed
1961 mission to overthrow Fidel Castro.
According
to Ellsberg, the military also repeatedly urged Kennedy to carry out a massive
bombing campaign with the aim of cutting off Vietnamese rebels in South Vietnam
from Communist weapons and supplies. Ultimately, Ellsberg argues, this would
have been impossible: The guerilla forces occupying South Vietnam at the time
depended largely on makeshift weapons, many of which had been stolen from U.S.
soldiers or adapted from their unexploded munitions.
Ellsberg
compares Kennedy’s resistance to committing ground troops to the current
conflict with Daesh (an Arabic acronym for the terrorist group commonly
referred to as ISIS or ISIL). He says President Barack Obama is under
considerable pressure from the military to commit more ground forces in Iraq
and Syria. Similarly, Daesh forces often use makeshift weapons or munitions stolen from the U.S.
The
whistleblower emphasizes that Kennedy felt forced to accede to some of the
military’s demands because his leadership of the country was quite fragile.
Although remembered today as a very popular president, Kennedy won by a tight margin,
amid widespread electoral irregularities and possible fraud.
Ellsberg
also notes that most Vietnamese people opposed war, whether or not they
supported Communism. Foreign military intervention both created and greatly
prolonged conflict:
“It was not a civil war, it was a foreign-instigated war.”
Listen
to Chapter 5 | Vietnam War a ‘foreign-instigated war,’ ‘not a civil war’:
About
Daniel Ellsberg
As
sites like WikiLeaks and figures such as Edward Snowden continue to reveal
uncomfortable truths about America’s endless wars for power and oil, one
important figure stands apart as an inspiration to the whistleblowers of
today: Daniel Ellsberg, the
whistleblower who leaked the “Pentagon Papers,” over 7,000 pages of top secret
documents, in 1971.
A
military veteran, Ellsberg began his career as a strategic analyst for the RAND
Corporation, a massive U.S.-backed nonprofit, and worked directly for the
government helping to craft policies around the potential use of nuclear
weapons. In in the 1960s, he faced a crisis of conscience while working for the
Department of Defense as an assistant to Assistant Secretary of Defense for
International Security Affairs John T. McNaughton, where his primary duty was
to find a pretext to escalate the war in Vietnam.
Inspired
by the example of anti-war activists and great thinkers like Gandhi and Martin
Luther King, Jr., he realized he was willing to risk arrest in order to prevent
more war. Lacking the technology of today’s whistleblowers, who can carry
gigabytes of data in their pockets, he painstakingly photocopied some 7,000
pages of top secret documents which became the “Pentagon Papers,” first
excerpted by The New York Times in June 1971.
Ellsberg’s
leaks exposed the corruption behind the war in Vietnam and had widespread
ramifications for American foreign policy. Henry Kissinger, secretary of state
at the time, famously referred to Ellsberg as “the most dangerous man in
America.”
Ellsberg
remains a sought-after expert on military and world affairs, and an outspoken
supporter of whistleblowers from Edward Snowden to Chelsea Manning. In 2011, he
told the Chelsea Manning Support Network that
Manning was a “hero,” and added:
“I wish I could say that our government has improved its treatment
of whistleblowers in the 40 years since the Pentagon Papers. Instead we’re
seeing an unprecedented campaign to crack down on public servants who reveal
information that Congress and American citizens have a need to know.”
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"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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