The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Files | True Story

by Daniel Ellsberg Published: June 12, 2026

written by Daniel Ellsberg Updated by Bergeracpas Published: June 12, 2026 Approx 2 Hrs. • Watch / read

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Dec 10, 2025

In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg, a high-level Pentagon official and Vietnam War strategist, concludes that the war is based on decades of lies and leaks 7,000 pages of top secret documents to The New York Times, hoping to help stop the war he helped plan. The Most Dangerous Man in America is the riveting story of how one man’s profound change of heart creates a landmark struggle involving America’s newspapers, president and Supreme Court-- a political thriller whose events led directly to Watergate, Nixon’s resignation and the end of the Vietnam War.

The above is powerful and a clear warning, but the US ruling class never learns and does not reform. Hence this:

Release of classified documents proposing 1958 nuclear attack on China

On May 22, 2021, during the Biden administration, The New York Times reported Ellsberg had released classified documents revealing the Pentagon in 1958 drew up plans to launch a nuclear attack on China amid tensions over the Taiwan Strait. According to the documents, US military leaders supported a first-use nuclear strike even though they believed China's ally, the Soviet Union, would retaliate and millions of people would perish. Ellsberg told The New York Times he copied the classified documents about the Taiwan Strait crisis fifty years earlier when he copied the Pentagon Papers, but chose not to release the documents then. Instead, Ellsberg released the documents in the spring of 2021 because he said he was concerned about mounting tensions between the U.S. and China over the fate of Taiwan. He assumed the Pentagon was involved again in contingency planning for a nuclear strike on China should a military conflict with conventional weapons fail to deliver a decisive victory. "I do not believe the participants were more stupid or thoughtless than those in between or in the current cabinet", said Ellsberg, who urged President Biden, Congress and the public to take notice.^[57]

Postscript

The Doomsday Machine

In December 2017, Ellsberg published The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner. He said that his primary job from 1958 until releasing the Pentagon Papers in 1971 was as a nuclear war planner for United States presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. He concluded that United States nuclear war policy was completely crazy and he could no longer live with himself without doing what he could to expose it, even if it meant he would spend the rest of his life in prison. However, he also felt that as long as the U.S. was still involved in the Vietnam War, the United States electorate would not likely listen to a discussion of nuclear war policy. He therefore copied two sets of documents, planning to release first the Pentagon Papers and later documentation of nuclear war plans. However, the nuclear planning materials were hidden in a landfill and then lost because of the tropical storm Doria.^[89]^[90]

•a high-level Pentagon official and Vietnam War strategist hoping to help stop the war he helped plan. The Most Dangerous Man in America is the riveting story of how one man’s profound change of heart creates a landmark struggle involving America’s newspapers JE/RG—In 1971 Nixon’s resignation and the end of the Vietnam War.president and Supreme Court-- a political thriller whose events led directly to Watergate

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The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Files | True Story

Daniel Ellsberg

Daniel Ellsberg (April 7, 1931 – June 16, 2023) was an American political activist, economist, and United States military analyst. While employed by the RAND Corporation, he precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of U.S. government decision-making in relation to the Vietnam War, to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other newspapers. In a 2002 memoir, Ellsberg wrote about the Vietnam War, stating that:[22]It was no more a "civil war" after 1955 or 1960 than it had been during the U.S.–supported French attempt at colonial reconquest. A war in which one side was entirely equipped and paid by a foreign power – which dictated the nature of the local regime in its own interest – was not a civil war. To say that we had "interfered" in what is "really a civil war," as most American academic writers and even liberal critics of the war do to this day, simply screened a more painful reality and was as much a myth as the earlier official one of "aggression from the North." In terms of the UN Charter and of our own avowed ideals, it was a war of foreign aggression, American aggression.

The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Files | True Story

The above is powerful and a clear warning, but the US ruling class never learns and does not reform. Hence this: Release of classified documents proposing 1958 nuclear attack on China

Postscript

The Doomsday Machine

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The above is powerful and a clear warning, but the US ruling class never learns and does not reform. Hence this:

Release of classified documents proposing 1958 nuclear attack on China