By M. Scott Carter
November 10, 2008 01:40 am
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OKLAHOMA CITY -- Former military analyst turned whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg said he found his inspiration in college students.
Ellsberg, who started a national controversy more than 30 years ago when he released the Pentagon Papers -- a 7,000-page secret analysis of the government's decision making process about the Vietnam War -- to The New York Times, told a crowd Saturday evening that he found inspiration for his opposition to the war after listing to a speech given by a student draft resister.
Speaking at the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma's Bill of Rights Celebration Saturday evening, Ellsberg said he made his decision to go public with the study "because of the example of the students who were willing to go to prison."
A military analyst for the RAND Corporation, he served in the Pentagon under then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Later, he said he became disillusioned with the war and began to attend anti-war rallies and events.
"I was inspired by those young people," he said. "By the students. The college students."
After the rally Ellsberg decided to risk a possible prison sentence to release the study and, he hoped, help bring about an end to the war.
The publication of the document caused a national firestorm and set up a Supreme Court fight between the Times and the administration of President Richard Nixon. While the Times published the first of nine excerpts, a court order prevented the paper from printing the remainder of the study for 15 days.
To ensure the documents were made public, Ellsberg provided copies to several other national media outlets including The Washington Post and 17 other newspapers.
The Times eventually resumed publication of the documents, but the resulting controversy cost Ellsberg his job and placed him on then-President Nixon's enemies list.
And while Ellsberg acknowledged his decision to leak the top-secret study cost him both personally and professionally, he said his only regrets were that he didn't "do something earlier to stop the war sooner."
"I wish I would have done it in '64," he said Saturday evening. "I wish I'd have done things earlier to try and stop the war."
A student of foreign affairs and national politics, Ellsberg said he was pleased by the recently election of Democrat Barack Obama as President.
"I am again inspired by the students," he said. "A movement of youth such as we saw this year, that's good. But our job and their job is not done."
But the 77-year-old speaker said he also had concerns about some of Obama's recent decisions.
"Having come to power with the slogan of change and responding to a desire for change, can we count on this president to do the rest of the work for us?" Ellsberg asked.
"There is a difference between the change that is needed," he said. "And the change that is likely."
Obama, he said, called for an increase in the size of the country's armed forces and probably won't completely remove soldiers from the Middle East.
"I don't think he can fund his domestic programs and increase the military budget," Ellsberg said.
"Obama, like Hillary, did not promise he would remove all our forces from the Middle East," he said. "But he did, unlike Hillary, call for a timetable and about 'residual function."
He said he believed it was "virtually impossible" that any president -- Democrat or Republican -- would give up American bases in the Middle East. "They could be there for as long as Cheney talked about -- 50 to 100 years," he said.
Ellsberg also predicted that American forces would remain in the Middle East.
"If, indeed, Americans are out in the next two, four or six years, then something will have happened that I didn't perceive," he said. "I think it's close to impossible to give up those bases."
He said he didn't believe the war with Iraq would end like the Vietnam war.
"I think that's almost close to impossible, to give up our military bases there. I don't think it's going to happen the way it did happen in Vietnam after 10 years, it's going to be a very hard thing. And, personally, I don't believe that President Obama will end the war."
Questioning Obama's choice of Rahm Emanuel as White House Chief of Staff, Ellsberg also said he didn't think the Obama administration would pressure Israel to accept a true, two-state policy.
"I don't think there will be the pressure to do that policy," he said.
And while Ellsberg said he didn't want to discourage those who had supported the country's first black president, he added the felt Obama was "a far better choice than John McCain."
He also said he would, like before, continue to fight for an end to the war.
"Just remember it all depends on you," he said. "And know that I will be there with you."
M. Scott Carter 366-3545 scarter@normantranscript.com
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