Talk:Daniel Ellsberg/Archive 1

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Unsource Bio 1

ELLSBERG, DANIEL (1931- ). A brilliant student, Ellsberg graduated from Harvard in 1952. He won a fellowship to study advanced economics at Cambridge University and then returned to Harvard for a M.A. in economics (1953). Ellsberg then waived his student deferment and volunteered for service in the marine corps (1954-56) seeing duty in the Middle East during the Suez crisis of 1956. Returning to Harvard, Ellsberg earned a Ph.D. in economics and then joined the Rand Corporation (1959) to study game theory and risk in nuclear war. In this capacity Ellsberg was a participant in strategy sessions relating to the Cuban Missile crisis (1962), a Defense Department consultant who visited Vietnam (1961), and a rising intellectual star who joined the Defense Department in 1964 to work for Robert S. McNamara, the Secretary of Defense, on issues relating to the Vietnam War. Ellsberg went to Vietnam again in 1965 where he began to move from his previously hawkish views on the war to the position of a dove because he felt the program of pacification followed by the US was not working. Between 1967 and 1969, at McNamara's request Ellsberg subsequently worked to compile a forty-seven volume classified document analyzing US policy decisions on Vietnam. This material later became known as the Pentagon Papers when on June 13, 1971 the New York Times and other newspapers began to publish excerpts from these volumes that Ellsberg had copied and given to the newspapers. The contents of the Pentagon Papers reenforced Ellsberg's moral qualms about US policy in Vietnam and documented the way successive American presidents overstepped their powers in conducting the war. The papers also revealed instances whereby the government had by-passed Congress or their advisers and misled the public about the extent of the US involvement in Vietnam. Following publication of the Pentagon Papers, the government sued the Times and Ellsberg was charged with conspiracy against the government. The Supreme Court ruled six to three (June 30, 1971) in favor of the Times and Ellsberg's case was declared a mistrial (1973) when the judge learned that agents employed by the Nixon staff had illegally broken into the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist seeking potentially damaging information on him. Ellsberg's PAPERS ON THE WAR (1972) sets out his position on the Vietnam conflict and his reasons for opposing it.

Unsourced bio

Ellsberg, Daniel, 1931–, American political activist, b. Chicago, grad. Columbia Univ. (B.S., 1952, Ph.D., 1959). After serving in the U.S. marine corps, he worked for the Rand Corporation (1959–64; 1967–70), conducting studies on defense policies. Originally a strong supporter of the Vietnam War, he became a committed opponent of U.S. policy. In 1971 he gave the New York Times access to a secret history of the Vietnam War, commissioned by the Dept. of Defense, which revealed that the government had repeatedly misled the American people about the escalation of the war. The government attempted to prevent the publication of the report, which became commonly known as the Pentagon Papers; the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the New York Times Co. v. United States (1971) that the publication of the papers was permissible. The government attempted to prosecute Ellsberg for the release of the report. The charges were dismissed in 1973 when it was revealed that White House officials had burglarized the offices of Ellsberg's psychiatrist in an effort to discredit him (see Watergate affair.)

"geez, is this for real?!"

I removed the sentence "geez, is this for real?!". Disputes of veracity should be discussed here not in the article.

White House attempt to *assassinate* Ellsberg?!

Currently (Dec 13 '04) the article says:

the White House secretly flew a dozen Cuban CIA "assets" to Washington DC with orders to assault or assassinate Ellsberg.

Is that consistent with what most historians think -- or is it a very controversial and dubious theory? What's the reference?

  • It's mentioned in Ellsberg's autobiography "Secrets", and referenced there. One of the Cubans involved claims he was told to kill Ellsberg, and another says he was told to mere break his legs. Some of the same people were involved in the break-in of Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office, and at least one was involved in Watergate. (As well as god-known-what-else that we don't know about.) – Quadell (talk) (help)[[]] 22:03, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

-Thanks Quadell. I intend to look that up. At this point I'd say I'm doubtful of the claim. I've been reading Peter Rudenstine's seemingly very thorough "The Day the Presses Stopped," which doesn't mention it among the reasons for the dropped prosecution against Ellsberg (see "Aftermath" section). An assassination attempt would be huge -- not something one would think a historian would want to omit. Some other sources I've seen also don't mention it, though one I saw speaks of a plan to create a disturbance by "punching him in the nose" then running. --Uriel, Dec. 14, 2004.

I just listened to an interview with Ellsberg on Scott Horton's Show show. Ellsberg specifically denied that the CIA assets were sent to 'assassinate' him. Rather, he said the prosecutors of the CIA assets told him the exact wording was "totally incapacitate." Ellsberg seems to think that it was really a plan to break his jaw or something that would keep him from appearing in public prior to the mining of Haiphong harbor. --Tim, July 18, 2005

malayn prostitute

Someone added a crack about pie and prostitutes into the quote, so I removed it

-Knight

The impact of the "Pentagon Papers"

"The publication of the papers greatly detracted from public support for the war in Vietnam."

What is the evidence for this claim?

--67.116.50.23 00:59, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Since there's no citation, I deleted the paragraph. It should have citations for inclusion. --Donald Hosek 06:44, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

By 1970, there wasn't very much public support left to detract from. Popular support for the Vietnam War, which had been fairly strong in early- to mid-60s, was in fact in serious disrepair by 1970. Moreover, this was a bipartisan sentiment (unlike the GOP/Dem split over Gulf War II) clearly reflected in polls at the time: voters in both parties were pissed off. At times Republicans (who didn't have a president in office until Nixon) were even more disaffected than Democrats.
The significance of the Pentagon Papers leak is really in what the article lead says about "precipitating constitutional crisis". The Nixon administration's misbehavior, both in the Cambodian Incursion and its treatment of those on Nixon's Enemies List -- which consisted largely of opponents of the war -- aroused concern, even fear: that presidents (not excluding Johnson and Kennedy) were and had been over-reaching. The Pentagon Papers contributed to a general crisis of legitimacy about the executive branch. In this article, you can see these concerns reflected in the Supreme Court decision to not prosecute newspapers for publishing Pentagon Papers material. It is also reflected in the acquittal of Ellsberg (and Russo) on the interesting grounds not that they were necessarily innocent of any crime, but that the Nixon administration had irrevocably poisoned its case by its efforts -- extralegal and downright illegal -- to discredit Ellsberg.
This sort of thing is better amplified in the Pentagon Papers article anyway. Yakushima (talk) 12:51, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

GA Re-Review and In-line citations

Members of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles are in the process of doing a re-review of current Good Article listings to ensure compliance with the standards of the Good Article Criteria. (Discussion of the changes and re-review can be found here). A significant change to the GA criteria is the mandatory use of some sort of in-line citation (In accordance to WP:CITE) to be used in order for an article to pass the verification and reference criteria. Currently this article does not include in-line citations. It is recommended that the article's editors take a look at the inclusion of in-line citations as well as how the article stacks up against the rest of the Good Article criteria. GA reviewers will give you at least a week's time from the date of this notice to work on the in-line citations before doing a full re-review and deciding if the article still merits being considered a Good Article or would need to be de-listed. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us on the Good Article project talk page or you may contact me personally. On behalf of the Good Articles Project, I want to thank you for all the time and effort that you have put into working on this article and improving the overall quality of the Wikipedia project. Agne 20:32, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


New photograph of Daniel and his wife

I've added a free photograph to the article (Creative Commons licensed). Ioerror 17:31, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Reasons for GA Delisting

Hopefully since last GA review, this article is as of yet unfinished but not less inaccurate.

I removed the part about him (paraphrasing=)deploying to Vietnam as a company commander, which was inaccurate. He did go to Vietnam but not as a company commander. ````---- – RememberHoward —Preceding unsigned comment added by RememberHoward (talk • contribs) 08:56, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

This article's GA status has been revoked because it fails criterion 2. b. of 'What is a Good Article?', which states;

(b) the citation of its sources using inline citations is required (this criterion is disputed by editors on Physics and Mathematics pages who have proposed a subject-specific guideline on citation, as well as some other editors — see talk page).

LuciferMorgan 23:19, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Added in Ellsberg religion. Removed unsourced information concerning Parents.

Religion

I am new at editing, however after reading quite a few other articles it does not seem approporiate to mention Ellsberg's Jewish parents and interest in Christian Science. I will delete it. Gandydancer 19:31, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I had added that in but then removed it after I saw your post. I am not sure why you deemed it inappropriate but will trust your judgement in leaving it out of the article Canking 22:40, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
I haven't seen the since-removed material but why would this be inappropriate? It's a biographical article about the man, not merely his historical role in terms of the Papers.Historian932 (talk) 02:44, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Leonard Weinglass

It would be good to have more info about the trial. In an interview with Duncan Campbell, published in The Guardian Newspaper 2007-01-09, G2 Section pp10-13, (also available online at Guardian Unlimited - accessed 2007-01-09), entitled "Society has become more punitive", Leonard Weinglass remarks that he was the laywer for the defence and still maintains friendship with Daniel Ellsberg. Vernon White . . . Talk 21:36, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Mistake vs. Immoral

I highly doubt someone would risk execution to help end a war because they thought they where not going to be victorious. It is far more likely that they regard it as immoral. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.180.61.194 (talk) 01:57, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Connection between family car crash and anti-authoritarianism

Seems like a bit of cheap psychologizing to me, especially when presented as fact.Historian932 (talk) 02:42, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

You mid think it is cheap, but it's was he (Daniel Ellsberg) said ;-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.232.43.19 (talk) 04:31, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
I doubt Ellsberg was above cheap psychologizing (there was plenty to go around in those days, and Ellsberg was pilloried in the press about rumors of his cold and vindictive reaction to his own mother's death). More important: I can't verify this. I've removed it. See below [1] for details. Yakushima (talk) 10:02, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Ellsberg's parents

What are the dates for birth and death of Ellsberg's parents? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.131.91.2 (talk) 11:21, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Plagiarism + WP:FRINGE?

A passage in the section about the Pentagon Papers runs as follows (my emphasis added).

"They [the Pentagon Papers] revealed that the government had knowledge all along that the war would not likely be won, and that continuing the war would lead to many times more casualties than was ever admitted publicly.[4] Further, the papers showed that high-ranking officials had a deep cynicism toward the public, as well as disregard for the loss of life and injury suffered by soldiers and civilians.[4]"

From the source cited in [4]:

"They revealed the knowledge, early on, that the war would not likely be won and that continuing the war would lead to many times more casualties than was admitted publicly. Further, the papers showed a deep cynicism by the military towards the public and a disregard for the loss of life and injury suffered by soldiers and civilians."

Not only is this rather blatant plagiarism, but that added "all along" suggests a conspiracy theory I'd never heard before: that from the very beginning, U.S. involvement in Indochina was not expected by those instigating it to succeed. Now, I'm not sure who's plagiarizing who, here. But I think there's little question we could find a more reliable source, and a better way to say this. For now, I'll just summarize it more briefly, relying on that same source but with different wording. Yakushima (talk) 05:49, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

It's not quite plagiarism when a citation is provided, and if the wording is very close you can always make it identical and use quotation marks. I've looked at your edits though and they seem fine, although they might vary a little too much from the cited sources. Nothing in the cited source is a conspiracy or fringe theory though; you should be able to find many newspaper articles describing the papers in a similar way. Try checking the main Pentagon Papers article. Gregcaletta (talk) 06:34, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
Consider reading a little more attentively: I didn't say that the source touted a conspiracy theory, just that the WP article effectively did by adding "all along" to the words ripped off from the source cited, implying something the author of that article clearly did not intend: that the U.S. government prosecuted the Vietnam War with no intent to prevail from the very beginning. As for your "It's not plagiarism if you supply a link", that's so laughable it's now a standing joke on the Internet: [2]. Sorry, but if you copy work in a way that makes it look like your wording is original, a footnote can serve as camouflage for that fact: it makes it look even more like you responsibly based your assertions on a reliable source that you actually ripped off. As for "if the wording is very close you can always make it identical and use quotation marks", please read WP:QUOTE -- it's not that simple. I'd say this bio violates WP:QUOTE in a couple places. Yakushima (talk) 16:36, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
I took a closer look at the source, and noticed that there's a lot of verbatim copying here -- enough so that I suspect that the website (a pretty cheesy one) contains a copy of a version of the Wikipedia article. Well, citing previous versions of Wikipedia isn't exactly meeting reliable source criteria; in any case, my objection to adding the words "all along" stands. I'm taking out the footnote and tagging the statement as unsourced. What a mess. Yakushima (talk) 17:24, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
Well, I added in quote from the New York Times, but the stuff you removed was also true, even if the source was not particularly good if you could look for a better source, rather than just removing the material. My point about plagiarism was that if the wording is exactly the same, you can place it in quotation marks, and it is not plagiarism. If the wording is not the same, then it is not plagiarism either, particularly if it is an Encyclopaedia which draws all of its information from others sources and for which citations are then given. Plagiarism means presenting another's work as if it were your own, which a cited statement is not doing. However, it would be great if you could find a better source for the statements. WP:QUOTE is not policy, it's just an essay, so it can't really by "violated", though it is an OK essay. What problems do you have with the quotes in the article? Gregcaletta (talk) 05:39, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
I removed a citation to an earlier version of the Wikipedia article. You don't cite a paragraph from an earlier (and plagiarized) version of the Wikipedia article (in any form) as a reliable source for the very same paragraph in the current version of the article. That's circular. As for "[i]f the wording is not the same, then it is not plagiarism either" -- have you read anything at all about the definition of plagiarism? Slight rewordings are probably the most common form of it. "Plagiarism means presenting another's work as if it were your own, which a cited statement is not doing." The wording was almost identical, except for that "all along". Look, I already pointed out earlier I didn't know which direction the plagiarism went. There is a reversecopyvio status for articles, to cover the case where somebody (in this case u-s-history.com) appears to have copied from Wikipedia without proper attribution. The point here is: this is a lousy source anyway, the verification appears to be circular, truly reliable sources should be used, and this doesn't count. I'm taking it out. And I predict any WP admin will support me in that move. Yakushima (talk) 03:04, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
As an example of a quote where WP:QUOTE seem germane, consider the "gobbledygook" quote from Haldeman. Because all other boxed quotes in this article are from Ellsberg, and because the message conveyed apparently echoes the general anti-authoritarian stance in the chosen Ellsberg quotes, I initially took the meaning differently from what Haldeman intended. Quotes should reflect the intent of the quoted. Worse, this quote isn't sourced. I've found several books (via Google Books) that contain some version of this quote, but they are all from 2005 onward, without any more attribution than this article contains -- leaving open the possibility that those books only copy an unsourced and inaccurate quote from Wikipedia (or perhaps Wikiquote.) I found a quote in an NY Times article from 2004 that includes some words that are not in the usual form of the quote, and which provide some interesting context: Donald Rumsfeld might actually have been the original source of the sentiment, even if Haldeman is on tape speaking the words. Now that I have a reliable source, I'll use it. I think it makes more sense to use it in the Wikipedia article about the Pentagon Papers, though, since the quote isn't about Ellsberg per se. Yakushima (talk) 03:31, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
Sure, if a quotation is not cited you can remove it, and it's even better if you can find a reliable source or something better to replace the the removed material, so thanks. Gregcaletta (talk) 03:57, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

It's clear to me now: u-s-history.com simply copied from Wikipedia back in 2005. This edit [3] to Daniel Ellsberg on April 11, 2004 has the original text and the "early on" (not "all along") wording. Compare with what the Internet Archive carries for u-s-history.com starting Oct 25, 2005: [4]. Obvious, isn't it? Circular citation. This is what you get for citing spam-site sources.

The u-s-history.com "early on" became "all along" in this [5] edit, very possibly by someone who probably didn't notice or realize that (a) the sentences were identical to those in the spam-site source he was citing, or that (b) the source was originally plagiarized from the very Wikipedia article he was editing. Although how this person re-interpreted "early on" (pretty vague, could mean 1960 or 1965 or anything inbetween) with "all along" (i.e., from the first serious military engagement) is quite beyond me. The u-s-history.com/Wikipedia version doesn't cite a source. We have R.W. Apple Jr's. quote immediately above, to similar effect. For now, I think I'll just restore the original Wikipedia article sentence, but leave it tagged for citation requirement. Yakushima (talk) 05:08, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

I have since asked [6] the person who originally expanded this article from a stub to something pretty decent to help out with citation. Yakushima (talk) 05:39, 2 July 2010 (UTC)


By the way, regarding this assertion,

.... the stuff you removed was also true, even if the source was not particularly good ....

You can't just wave it away, saying it's all certainly true. My biggest question is about this part: that the Pentagon papers proved some general "disregard for safety of soldiers and civilians." That's not even in the main article Pentagon Papers. What make you so sure?

I'd like to see it substantiated from RS. After all, a "cynical" attitude toward the public does not exclude due concern for soldiers and civilians. McNamara, for example was very concerned that Vietnam bomb targeting be limited to militarily significant sites. (Perhaps his direct and knowing complicity in over 100,000 civilian deaths in the Tokyo firebombing of WW II was nagging at his conscience by then.)

Daniel Ellsberg himself has hardly been unlimited in his scorn and suspicion of the U.S. defense complex. At times he has defended its honor (or that of individuals within it, anyway.) When I was living in Berkeley, my girlfriend at the time worked in a bookstore run by a couple who were good friends with Ellsberg. After the movie JFK came out, she said Ellsberg stormed into their store, and had to practically be peeled off the ceiling. The movie made it look like the Joint Chiefs of Staff had been complicit in the Kennedy assassination, which he said was scurrilous and defamatory.

Believe it or not, there are high officers in the U.S. military who hate war, especially including the deaths of soldiers and civilians, with a passion that can't be understood except by those who have been in war. If there's something in the Pentagon Papers themselves that, without POV-interpretation, can be viewed as expressing callous and casual attitudes about military and civilian deaths, it's long past time to bring it to the surface. That such an outrage isn't easily found on the surface of the evidence already speaks volumes as to its plausibility. It's not the kind of thing you'd have to dig for, after all these years. Yakushima (talk) 08:01, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I'm sure most of what you have just said is correct. The "usa-history" article says the Papers showed "a disregard for the loss of life and injury suffered by soldiers and civilians." It doesn't say exactly who. But it is certainly true that there was some, and at the highest levels, and we should definitely be able to get a reliable source for this. In fact, there is a good documentary that recently came out which you could use as a reliable source if you are interested in doing some more research for this article called "The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers". In it, there is a audio tape of Nixon telling Kissinger that he wanted to destroy the North Vietnamese population with nuclear weapons, and he definitely said it in a way which showed "a disregard for the loss of life and injury suffered by soldiers and civilians". This particular conversation obviously wasn't in the Pentagon Papers, but from everything I have heard about the Pentagon Papers, they showed that many officials high-up in the military (though certainly not all) showed an indifference for the lives of the North Vietnamese. If you watch the documentary, I'm sure you would plenty of evidence for this, and you could even cite the video as a source. Gregcaletta (talk) 08:56, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
This is WP:BLP. We must stay thoroughly on-topic (this is a biography of Daniel Ellsberg, not a history of the Nixon administration -- which came into power after the Pentagon Papers were assembled.) Whenever possible, we should use text sources that readers can verify directly for themselves, so that they can more easily find our errors, if any. We cannot let falsehoods or speculation creep in.
A documentary video might be OK if there were a transcript publicly available, and it might bear mention in this article if a direct link to Daniel Ellsberg and Nixon's comment is made in that transcript. Not otherwise.
And even truly fact-based documentaries shouldn't be preferentially cited when the documents they are based on are equally (or more) available. A documentary seldom says as nearly as much as a book. A documentary doesn't come with footnotes. A documentary will tend to dramatize. And people's memories of dramatized and not-easily-reviewed documentaries can be unreliable. You say, for example, that Nixon actually said that he wanted to kill lots of North Vietnamese with nuclear weapons? If so, why can't I easily find a direct quote somewhere, of something so outrageous? In particular, why isn't it in the following impeccable source: "Nixon White House Considered Nuclear Options Against North Vietnam, Declassified Documents Reveal", The National Security Archive [7]? What you claim you heard is conspicuously outrageous, and you say it was on tape (therefore available to these researchers as well), but it's somehow not mentioned by diligent scholars concerned to expose Nixon's dangerous thinking on the subject of nuclear weapons use in Vietnam? How likely is such an oversight on their part?
In the matter of use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam, one can too easily jump to the conclusion that the proposals showed especially callous disregard for human life. The facts I've found (see above) don't clearly bear that out, however. In one case, the nuclear bomb proposal was for closing a strategic pass to China. Depending on the location of the pass (how remote from the nearest town or village), nuking it might not have caused more loss of life compared some attempt to close the pass using conventional bombing. (Which, with less probability of success, might have been less complete, thus repeatedly attempted to ensure success, with added loss of life each time).
Note that, according to the above source, Nixon apparently seriously considered some nuclear attack (target not specified) partly on the grounds of producing fewer casualties, not more:
On April 25, while discussing "Linebacker," the forthcoming U.S. aerial counterattack against the DRV, Nixon told Kissinger about his interest in using "a nuclear bomb" as an alternative to bombing North Vietnam's dike system, which was also a step he strongly favored. A nuclear attack against another target, he assumed, would cause fewer civilian casualties yet make a powerful "psychological" impact on Hanoi and the Soviets.
Consider also that his main interest was in bringing the war to an end as quickly as possible, in a way that reflected favorably to his administration. The sooner it ended (on something like politically acceptable and relatively humane terms) the fewer civilian and military casualties there would be overall (in some counterfactual anyway), and the better he'd look. In short, you can't jump, from hearing of a proposal to use nuclear weapons, to the conclusion that the proposed use would have been genocidal, just because that was an apparent pattern of abuse established during the U.S. attack on the Japanese mainland in WW II. That's WP:SYNTH. And please note that even those attacks had been rationalized in terms of reducing civilian and military casualties overall. I don't completely buy that rationale, personally, but at the same time, I can see that the U.S. firebombing campaign of that time (about 60 Japanese cities in all) was hardly less lethal. I can also see that, in dragging out the killing in a gruesomely spectacular way, hour after hour, firebombing was probably far more terrifying for the Japanese than the nuclear bombings, which at least killed most of their victims almost instantly.
I hold no particular brief for Nixon and Kissinger -- to my mind, they were both war criminals, and even more so for what they did in Cambodia than in Vietnam. In general, I see bombing of civilians in the 20th century an under-prosecuted class of war crime. Wikipedia isn't about my opinion or yours, however. It's supposed to be just the facts, where they are germane to each topic it takes up, verified as well as possible.
Daniel Ellsberg was a nuclear strategist, and if something turns up indicating that any of the nuclear plans Nixon and Kissinger read and considered had been drafted (in whole or in part) by Ellsberg, that's clearly within scope of his biography. Otherwise, there are plenty of other good articles for this kind of thing, and including some such well-supported statement in those articles is likely to give it greater play anyway, if that's your goal. Yakushima (talk) 12:26, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
You are correct that it is preferable to use the documents if they are "equally (or more) available". I was just suggesting the documentary as a good place to start if you are interested in doing some research for this article or for the Pentagon Papers article. There is no problem with citing a doco if it is in a factual style. A transcript is not necessary. You can use the "cite video" template. "Freely available" sources are ideal, but not absolutely necessary. Many scientific articles cite journal articles; certain such articles are much less freely available than a major documentary film. I can't comment much on the veracity of the factual statements you have made, as I haven't done too much research into this myself, but try watching the documentary if you can get your hands on it; I've heard it is very factually accurate. Gregcaletta (talk) 04:39, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
"I was just suggesting the documentary as a good place to start...."
No, read your own words: you told me to use it as a reliable source.
As for the pitfalls in relying only on the video when the relative navigability and searchability of video transcripts can keep you out of trouble, you might take a look at this issue, in what seems to be one of your favorite articles: [8] Yakushima (talk) 18:51, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
I agree that a video is not Iideal, but it still an acceptable source for I citation. In order to improve this article, you will obviously need to do some research into the subect, Daniel Ellsberg, both in order to gather reliable sources, and to develop a general understanding of the subject. I have not seen the documentary, although I plan to, I have merely heard that is a very factually accurate and well presented documentary a,d though I thought "it might be a good place to start" both to use as a source for the article, and also because it sounds like a very accessible introduction to developing a general understanding of Ellsberg's public life. I'm fairly certain that the movie critics I heard discussing it said there was audio of a conversation between Nixon and Kissinger in which Nixon was very keen of dropping nuclear bombs on Vietnam, and seemed to say it in a way that was indifferent to the lives of the Vietnamese. I am not certain of this though, because the documentary has not yet been shown in cinemas in my country. However, if you can get your hands it you could verify that for yourself. Gregcaletta (talk) 05:10, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
Here is a good review of the documentary, (with a transcript for your reading pleasure), in which they mention the Nixon/Kissinger arguments, although you could not cite the movie review, so you will have to find the documentary itself. There is also an interview with the director in case you are interested. Gregcaletta (talk) 06:42, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
Not a very useful source. It amounts to: "Nixon wanted to drop a bomb, Kissinger talked him out of it," that's all. From the National Security Archive sources I already cite above, you can see there's much more to this whole issue -- but still not much to suggest that the point of dropping any of those nukes would have been to increase civilian casualties. They might have been foolhardy in thinking that there were tactical/strategic/psychological-warfare uses for nukes that might have resulted in fewer civilian casualties than what they were already doing. But if you look at what they were already doing, it was already so lethal that, in an odd and very technical way, they might actually have had a point.
Keep in mind what I'm looking for here, which is support for this statement of yours:
In [this documentary], there is a audio tape of Nixon telling Kissinger that he wanted to destroy the North Vietnamese population with nuclear weapons, and he definitely said it in a way which showed "a disregard for the loss of life and injury suffered by soldiers and civilians". Yakushima (talk) 06:26, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
Definitely? Read Bombing of Vietnam's dikes. It seems to have the Nixon/Kissinger exchange you bring up.
Then read the National Security Archives analysis I point out above (in which they are pretty obviously not trying to spare either of those awful creeps the judgment of history). In context, it's not hard to see that Nixon was recoiling in horror at Kissinger's mention of an estimated 200,000 people drowning if they went through with this conventional-weapons attack on that dike system. He goes from being in favor of bombing the dikes earlier in that day, to against it, after asking Kissinger, and being told, the incredible human cost. (Good thing he bothered to ask.)
Apparently there was some sort of plan to use a nuclear weapon in some far less lethal manner, instead of bombing the dikes. (See NS archive article I cite above). It seems that what appealed to Nixon about that nuke plan was its relative non-lethality, and especially for civilians (plus, of course, the signal of "madman theory" seriousness to the North Vietnamese, the Russians and the Chinese, which was always a factor with these two guys.)
Another nuke target mulled was an airport serving Hanoi. Which one, though? What's now Noi Bai International Airport, and now 28 miles from Hanoi? Which, as reported by Kissinger [9] was 50 miles north of Hanoi when it was a military airfield in that war? (Hanoi has grown in 40 years, after all.) Or was the target what is now Gia Lam airport which is much closer, 10 minutes drive to Hanoi's center compared to about an hours drive for Noi Bai?
Hard to imagine how nuking Gia Lam would have yielded low civilian casualties, and I haven't found any sources indicating that this is the airfield Nixon's nuclear tacticians were talking about then. In context, the most likely supposition here is that the contemplated target was Noi Bai -- with its longer runways that could (unlike Gia Lam) more easily handle heavy Russian military cargo transport. Nixon and Kissinger had already learned how hard it was to thoroughly disable an airfield with conventional bombing. They'd already tried. Small craters can be filled up fast. A ground burst of a low-yield nuclear weapon, however, would have left one big crater where Noi Bai had been, while limiting effects in the surrounding area -- shock waves, blinding light, and direct radiation -- that come with Hiroshima-style airbursts. But perhaps every bit as important: Noi Bai was way out in the countryside, so that nuking it wouldn't kill many civilians, or at least none who hadn't already seen B-52s hitting their workplace and nearby areas, but who were still showing up for work anyway.
Of course, Nixon might not have cared so much about 200,000 drowning deaths from a moral point of view. At that point, maybe he only cared about how such a casualty figure would work against him politically. In any case, if this is what you heard in that documentary, it's not unambiguously showing "a disregard for the loss of life and injury suffered by soldiers and civilians" on Nixon's part. For whatever reason, Nixon still actually seemed to have some regard for such things. (Then, at least - Cambodia might be a different story)
And where is the Oval office transcript quoted? Bombing of Vietnam's dikes cites it as "Ellsberg p. 418". But there's no footnote or bibliography. (I've seen this exchange in other RS, though, so I'm not doubting it.) Any idea of what Ellsberg book that might be? Maybe there's something usable here. I mean, it would be a shame to not get something for this BLP out of this long discussion we've had, and it finally looks like there's something reliable here, something that might even provide the basis for (*sigh*) one of those edits we do sometimes, to articles under WP:BLP, with half a chance of actually improving them in the process? Yakushima (talk) 06:26, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
If I had to guess at which book that would be, I would guess it was his memoir (listed on this page). The documentary was based on his memoir, which was why I think it my be good lace to start if you want to do further research. Again, I have not personally seen the documentary, because it has not come out in Australia yet, but I have heard it is very good. The documentary won the Academy Award, and is very factual. But if you still object to that, but want to read his memoir, that would be even better, fact-wise. I'm not nearly as familiar with the Vietnam War as you are, so I can't help you out too much on facts. Gregcaletta (talk) 10:07, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
On the Nixon/Kissinger exchange:

President: I still think we ought to take the dikes out now. Will that drown people?

Kissinger: About two hundred thousand people.
President: No, no, no, I'd rather use the nuclear bomb. Have you got that, Henry?
Kissinger: That, I think, would just be too much.
President: The nuclear bomb, does that bother you?...I just want you to think big, Henry, for Christsakes. (Ellsberg p. 418, ellipses original)

Although you make an interesting point about the idea that nuclear weapons could minimise civilian casualties, I think its fairly safe to say that language like this shows "a disregard for the loss of life and injury suffered by soldiers and civilians" or to be euphemistic "an insufficient regard" and I think it is fairly obvious his main objection to to the casualties was the political fallback, which further heightens the idea that he had a "disregard" to the well being of civilians. Gregcaletta (talk) 10:19, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
I linked Bombing of Vietnam's dikes above for you. Why quote it as if I hadn't read it, when I'd already read it and explained my view of that exchange?
If in fact the nuke plans under discussion were being contemplated as lower-casualty alternatives to conventional bombing, where's the need to invoke their hypothetical mushroom cloud to show how callous they were? Just establish how callous the real conventional bombing was.
As for disregard for taking lives, well, this was war: historically, incurring huge loss of life was rationalized even by those with good intentions, when they believed it would avert even greater evils. Sure, in that conversation, Kissinger and Nixon were talking about 10,000 deaths here, 15,000 there (presumably including a lot of Indochinese civilians). Maybe because I grew up then, I measure it against the standards of the time. 10,000 U.S. G.I.s dead was basically a bad year for that war, and Nixon and Kissinger had already seen a few of those. The strategists were mainly veterans of WW II, in which major campaigns killed many more. Had Kissinger's family not left Nazi Germany, he might have ended up one of some six million. Then go to the body count for all of Europe. And so (as Vonnegut wrote, in a not-entirely-irrelevant context) it goes.
Times certainly change, and notability standards with them. For example: we're now both editing July_12, 2007 Baghdad_airstrike. That attack took about two dozen lives, certainly most (if not all) innocent, reported (but not adequately) at the time, leaving nettlesome questions. That article is now longer than Operation Menu, which, despite its anodyne title, is about a series of attacks that killed several hundred thousand people, but somehow kept secret for about 4 years. The revelation and resulting outrage turned the business district of my college town into a maze of tear gas, broken glass and police barriers --- an event that would, in itself, be distinctly notable (and already extensively described on Wikipedia) even if it had happened yesterday. As it is, there's probably no WP article about it.
Finally, you may assume that Nixon and Kissinger were callous even by the standards of their day. I happen to think they were, or at least became so. But we have to back that up with RS. Ultimately, their true feelings might be between them and God, and nowhere to be found in RS. If so, we can only back off to notable he-said-she-said in RS about whether they were 60s-standard callous. How wimpy. But Wikipedia is a bunch of dressed-up facts. "Fact are stubborn things," someone once said. Sometimes facts are stubbornly wimpy. (If that's not an oxymoron.)
This Nixon/Kissinger nuclear bombing discussion might yet merit mention in Daniel Ellsberg. I'm interested in Ellsberg's interest in it because he was a nuclear strategist, and a Vietnam strategist, and he might have had something to do with revealing the conversation, and it might tie into his later anti-nuclear advocacy, itself an under-treated topic in the bio. Actually, I love making connections like that, while skirting WP:SYNTH in the process (well, maybe I can, here). If only these connections were a little stronger .... Yakushima (talk) 13:48, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Unsubstantiated paraphrase about car accident deleted

I've deleted the following sentence concluding the paragraph about the car crash that killed Ellsberg's mother and sister:

"Ellsberg stated he learned the need to monitor the actions of those in authority not because people were bad but because they could be inattentive.

The citation given for this is "BBC Four Storyville - 2009-2010 - 14. The Most Dangerous Man in America. I've looked up that program; it's not available for verification. I've substituted citation of the main relevant passage from Tom Wells' biography of Ellsberg. I've looked at all of Wells' passages relating to the accident; somehow, in this very comprehensive biography, none mention Ellsberg learning a lesson about the inattentiveness of authority.

The claim makes little sense anyway: Ellsberg's father was sleep-deprived on that leg of the drive. "Inattention" is not the same as "sleepy". Nor was Ellsberg's father "inattentive" to his own sleepiness -- from the reports of the surviving family, he was in fact complaining bitterly about driving sleep-deprived, but being urged to continue by his wife. And if Ellsberg had, in fact, learned some kind of Question Authority lesson from this accident, why didn't he turn into a gently questioning rebel from that accident onward, instead of becoming a trusted and obedient servant of authority, as he so clearly was, for so much of his career? If there's any message Ellsberg seems to want to get out there, it's that people in authority not only can be bad, but often are bad.

Finally, even if Ellsberg had expressed this sentiment about inattention at some point (where?), it's decidely WP:UNDUE to mention this opinion in the context of the accident while failing to mention (somewhere) the long, agonizing feeding frenzy in the press over the revelation that his mother's death had only made him feel relieved from pressure to become a concert pianist. I'd rather not go into that in this biography, but I have to admit: to do so would be fair game in Wikipedia terms, since it's decidedly notable.

Folks, this is WP:BLP -- it's important to get things right, from sources that can be checked. In this case, a statement that didn't make much sense in the first place couldn't be checked. If somebody can find an RS for it, then OK, it goes back in. Otherwise, this just seems like somebody's questionable paraphrase supported by what amounts to a dead link, when, if there were anything to the claim, it seems there'd be so much more evidence of it. Yakushima (talk) 09:53, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

30-year gap - WP:UNDUE on Pentagon Papers?

Obviously, the Pentagon Papers define Ellsberg's notability like nothing else. However, there's a 30-year-plus gap between the last incident in his life related to the Pentagon Papers (acquittal) and anything else mentioned about him. That gap doesn't square with my memory (as an SF Bay Area resident) of Ellsberg's activities in that period, and if you read this Mother Jones article [10] from 1982, you can see why: he was very active in the anti-nuclear movement. This gap in his biography should be addressed: it's worth at least a section of its own. Yakushima (talk) 12:30, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Early life and career - fleshing out, with corrections and citations

What used to be a "Biography" section (absurdly, since the whole article is a biography) I re-titled "Early life and career". That heading is not very satisfying either, but at least it's not absurd.

I have since started combing out that section's chronology a little, which some previous versions of this article had left decidedly ambiguous and confused. I've also added details.

Unfortunately, there are only a few sources right now for this section, and none of them are exactly what you'd want:

  • Tom Wells' Wild Man biography (which, as you may gather from the title and reviews, is a bit POV and full of gossipy quotes that ought to be taken with a grain of salt);
  • a possibly-legit biography "Daniel Ellsberg", apparently copied from some source called Encyclopedia of World Biography, on a less RS-ish site, BookRags.com (suspiciously gushy in its accolades, so everything it says ought to be checked carefully against other sources);
  • BBC Four Storyville, for a video no longer available (already been used to back an implausible claim - see above)
  • UPI.com 1971 Year in Review [11], inexcusably cited in support of a statement that's not even made by that source.

Mea culpa: the first two are sources I've supplied recently.

There's much that's quite notable in Ellsberg's early life, in his education, and in his pre-Pentagon Papers career (if anything he did during and after that uproar can properly be called a "career" -- "crusade" might be more like it). For example, he was apparently called on during the Cuban Missile Crisis. This is hardly small potatoes -- for all I know now about this, even if Ellsberg he'd dropped off the map afterward, what he contributed during that harrowing episode might have left him WP-notable (albeit briefly) as a nuclear strategist.

This article used to be GA. I think the first serious draft of it was quite well-written. It was dropped from the GA list because Wikipedia's standards strengthened in a positive direction (especially for WP:BLP) - the article's citing of sources was inadequate. It has since improved, but this particular section is still weak in that respect. It's also sketchy. That's unfortunate. The Daniel Ellsberg who arrived in Vietnam in the mid-60s was (according to Ellsberg's wife) already known to reporters there as "brilliant" and "dangerous". "Dangerous" might be POV, but "brilliant" seems beyond question. Either way, this earlier Ellsberg deserves fuller treatment. If we provide that treatment, together with better use of sources in the rest of the article, and a closing of what I call the "30-year gap", above, it might take the article back up to GA status. It seems worth a try. Yakushima (talk) 07:31, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Circumstances of leak

This edit [12] removed wording I'd used to indicate that Ellsberg was sharing the Pentagon papers with Sheehan under (at some point) an agreement that Sheehan wouldn't publish without Ellsberg's permission, and that Sheehan went ahead without that permission. The source cited (which I'd also supplied) supported this point.

Finally, after much dithering, Ellsberg met with Neil Sheehan of the Times. After reneging on a publication agreement with Sheehan, he allowed him to see some of the documents but told him not to copy them. Sheehan ignored the request, combined his duplicates with those he had received from the IPS, and published them, giving the Times an exceptional scoop.[13]

The source cited might be wrong. If so, however, the way to handle that is to come here and explain the edit (before or after you make it), and say why you think the source is wrong. This is important, because the source is used elsewhere in this article -- we need a good assessment of its relative reliability. As it is, there's not even an edit summary explaining why my wording was removed.

The precise circumstances leading up to publication is unquestionably relevant for this BLP, since it involves important relations and communications that Ellsberg had with people whose actions dramatically changed his life. We shouldn't take an "underpants gnomes business plan" approach ("Collect documents" + "?" + "Heroic Whistleblower") to how this happened, if there's RS for verification of a sequence of decisions and events. Yakushima (talk) 03:48, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Arrest in Dec 2010

Ellsberg was arrested in dec 2010. could be worth a mention —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.244.154.43 (talk) 15:35, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Donald Rumsfeld

Donald Rumsfeld is mentioned as "[then cabinet-member Donald] Rumsfeld", but he doesn't seem to have held a cabinet-level post at the time (June 14, 1972). According to the Wikipedia article on Rumsfeld, he held two administrative positions in the Nixon administration, but neither sound like a cabinet position (although the article describes them that way). From the info box on the left, he didn't get a cabinet position until he became Secretary of Defense under President Ford. Can we come up with a better way to describe Rumsfeld? —MiguelMunoz (talk) 03:35, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, quite right. I could find no reliable source placing him in Nixon Cabinet. I removed that statement. Given that there is a link, I don't think we need to explain who Rumsfeld was. Sunray (talk) 07:14, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Restoring deleted sourced material regarding Ellsberg's views on Edward Snowden

I have just restored material deleted regarding Ellsberg's views on Edward Snowden which are relevant since Snowden, like Ellsberg, has released controversial material that is either a "leak" or "whistleblowing" depending on your point of view. I think that removal of the material is not correct on the charge of WP:RECENTISM... this is sourced, to the point information on the topic that is why Ellsberg is a historical figure. I invite civil discussion on the material, which is important for every Wikipedian to remember regarding article content no matter what they think of Snowden and his actions. Jusdafax 21:11, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Definitely should be INCLUDED. Snowden, Assange, Ellsberg and the late "Deep Throat" are major figures in whistleblowing history. If any of them issues a statement concerning another, that is significant news. 209.172.25.74 (talk) 00:50, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Under Fileding break-in, bottom of the section:

"The break-in was not known to Ellsberg or to the public until it came to light during Ellsberg and Russo's trial in April 1973. Ellsberg then died three months later"

Ellsberg died three months later? Am I missing something? Ellsberg is still alive today, right?

116.17.85.31 (talk) 16:08, 17 November 2013 (UTC) Sidney S. Nov. 18, 2013

"Mistrial" header

what mistrial? if the judge "dismissed all charges against him", that's an acquittal, no?

a mistrial is a mistrial. in particular, the prosecution usually tries the suspect anew. in this case, they could not, correct? 209.172.25.3 (talk) 21:35, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

You are correct; the case was dismissed. Xxiggy (talk) 03:35, 13 February 2014 (UTC) source please:

Daniel Ellsburg himself claims his case was a mistrial, the Film says his case was a mistrial, and the wikipedia article says his case was a mistrial:

"As for Daniel Ellsberg, the espionage case against him ended in a mistrial. " -Al Letson. [ revealnews.org/episodes/the-pentagon-papers-secrets-lies-and-leaks/ ] [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Letson ]

Removing some material

I was speaking today with Daniel Ellsberg at a conference, and he's told me that much of the material in this article is inaccurate. I'm planning therefore to make some edits to the article removing material that is unsourced and that he says is incorrect. Feel free to revert my edits if they seem wrong to you, particularly if you have citations. (I'm not an expert and probably won't do any research. That's why I'm going to restrict myself to removals, rather than revisions or additions. I may do a little rewording as well, but I'll try to keep it minimal.) Thanks Sue Gardner (talk) 02:46, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

I just made ~10 edits to the article as described above. This article could really use a review from someone familiar with the subject matter, and I'm guessing the Pentagon Papers article maybe too. (I haven't checked.) Most of my edits were pretty trivial but it would be great for this article to be accurate at both a detail and a big-picture level (e.g. relative weight, etc.). It would be awesome if anyone has time to do a real review. Thanks Sue Gardner (talk) 03:25, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

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Was the Car Crash as a Teen Relevant/Citable?

I don’t have the stomach for an edit war here, but in archived Talk page, there is a discussion about the removal of a reference to the car crash that killed Eldersberg’s mother and sister when he was 18 and nearly killed him. Two recent pieces of evidence from Ellsberg himself suggest this discussion should be a part of his story:

From The Financial Times https://www.ft.com/content/c7f058bc-d9b5-11e7-a039-c64b1c09b482:

“I was keen to go further back in Ellsberg’s life than that. When he was 15, his father crashed the car that was carrying his family. Ellsberg’s mother and younger sister were killed. Ellsberg nearly joined them. He was in a coma for almost four days. How has that affected him? “The car crash alerted me to the possibility that the world can change in a flash for the worst,” he says. “That is the story I have been telling myself for more than 70 years.”

“But in the past few months he has been revising what he thinks of the tragedy. “Was it really an accident?” he asks. His new answer is complex. It also goes some way to explaining why Ellsberg is more worried about human fallibility than most people.

“The tragedy occurred on the July 4 holiday in 1946. Ellsberg’s mother wanted to drive to Denver from Detroit, where they lived. She forgot to book a motel for the first night, so they slept on the dunes of Lake Michigan. Ellsberg and his father shivered under blankets on the beach for most of the night. His mother and sister slept in the car. “I remember my father hardly got any sleep,” Ellsberg recalled. “I also remember waking up in the middle of the night and seeing falling stars, this shower of meteors — I’d never seen so many.”

“The next day, Ellsberg’s father kept saying he was too tired to drive, and suggested they pull over. But his mother said they should press on. At some point in the middle of Iowa’s cornfields, Ellsberg’s father must have nodded off at the wheel. They veered calamitously off the road. “‘Accident’ is the wrong word,” says Ellsberg. “It was an accident in the sense that nobody intended it to happen. But both my parents knew the risks and they took the gamble anyway.”

A recent Reveal Podcast with Ellsberg also covers this. Both the podcast and Financial Times article belong in this history . See https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/the-pentagon-papers-secrets-lies-and-leaks/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pfrishauf (talk • contribs) 18:40, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

I also find it interesting that Ellsberg, in the Reveal podcast said he wanted to be a pianist!

Amazon boycott

When Ellsberg found that Amazon had kicked WikiLeaks off their servers, he publicly stated that he would boycott Amazon. This should be included. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.106.59.41 (talk) 16:14, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

If you have multiple reliable sources to verify this, please feel free to add it, but give consideration to WP:RECENTISM before doing so.--JayJasper (talk) 19:59, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

no such thing as infallibility or accepx, dump doesn't matter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lyhendc (talk • contribs) 03:14, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Updating The Doomsday Machine

As of 2019-05-15 this article included the following summary of Ellseberg (2017) the Doomsday Machine:

In December 2017, Ellsberg published The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, a book with his recollections and analysis of a second cache of secret documents related to the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The book stated that US government documents revealed that President Eisenhower empowered a few top military officers to be able to use nuclear weapons without presidential authorization in case there was incapacitation or no way to contact the president. Ellsberg believes that similar procedures remain in place today – in sharp contrast to what the American public is told about how the "nuclear football" works. In the book, Ellsberg revealed that he had made copies of sensitive U.S. nuclear planning materials and memos he had reviewed during his time at the RAND Corporation, and intended to leak them to the public shortly after the Pentagon Papers were published. However, during the time of Ellsberg's trial, these nuclear planning materials were hidden in a briefcase buried in a landfill, and were lost when an unexpected tropical storm descended on the region.[1]

This grossly understates Ellsberg's claims of problems with the command and control systems for nuclear weapons. I've therefore replaced it with a more accurate and expanded summary based on the book and related references. DavidMCEddy (talk) 05:20, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Kevin Canfield, ‘The Doomsday Machine,’ by Daniel Ellsberg San Francisco Chronicle, retrieved December 21, 2017.

I like what you did but that list is a tad bit gregarious. I believe only the highlights should be listed. Muttnick (talk) 08:20, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Especially regarding the list of 25 numbered items?
He also said that every president since Truman, with the possible exception of Ford, at least considered using nuclear weapons and many if not all threatened such use. A better summary might list each of these presidents with nations threatened and the context, with links to appropriate references for each. ??? I'll work on that. Thanks, DavidMCEddy (talk) 18:43, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
I replace the list by a table that is not as much shorter as I thought it would be, but I think makes the point more effectively -- and in a way that communicates the message more effectively while taking substantially less time of the reader to process.
What do you think? DavidMCEddy (talk) 21:35, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
Not bad. I'm thinking that it might be best (and easily justifiable) to make that section it's own article and to redirect to it. But either way, I like what you've done. Muttnick (talk) 22:35, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. To make that section its own article would require, I think, citing several other sources talking about it. This would certainly include his interview on Democracy Now with others.
Ellsberg's Doomsday Machine inspired me to estimate the probability distribution of the Wikiversity:Time to the extinction of civilization.
I think it's worth making a separate article, but I'm currently engaged on several other activities inspired by Ellsberg's Doomsday Machine. Last December, I wrote Wikiversity:Time to the extinction of civilization, estimating the probability distribution of the time to a nuclear war and Armageddon. In working to improve that article, I discoverd that when the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT) entered into force in 1970, there were 5 nuclear weapon states. Now there are 9, and I'm currently creating separate articles on that.
If you want to take the lead in creating a separate article on Ellsberg's Doomsday Machine, I would support that. However, I don't want to drive that effort right now. DavidMCEddy (talk) 00:40, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Should a Christian Scientist be categorized as a Jew?

The article page states that Ellsberg's parents "were Ashkenazi Jews who had converted to Christian Science, and he was raised as a Christian Scientist." Accordingly, pending consensus to the contrary, I have removed tags for {Category:American Jews in the military} and {Category:Jewish American social scientists}. KalHolmann (talk) 19:59, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

User:190.140.65.164 deleted the reference to his parents being Ashkenazi Jews. I reverted that change. A change like this should be discussed before it is made in my judgment, especially by an anonymous user. DavidMCEddy (talk) 04:15, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Ellsberg is an economist

@Suriname0: Wikipedia:Short description says, "aim for no more than about 40 characters (but this can be exceeded when necessary)." With that target, what about:

"Whistleblower known for Pentagon Papers"?

I actually prefer the version you shortened: "American economist and whistleblower known for releasing the Pentagon Papers", because he is an economist -- and his access to the information released in the Pentagon Papers was based primarily on his contributions in game theory, a branch of economics, part of which is acknowledged in getting his name attached to what is now called the "Ellsberg paradox": Without that paradox, he might not have gotten the government job that gave him access to the information released as the "Pentagon papers".

I haven't thought much about these "Short descriptions", so I don't think I should do more than just make these comments. DavidMCEddy (talk) 21:28, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for you thoughts! I've replaced my shortening with the original description from Wikidata. Two things that might be useful to know: (1) Wikidata-sourced short descriptions are going away sometime soon, so note that getting _some_ reasonable short description on pages is useful, even if it's just the one from Wikidata. For that, I highly recommend enabling WP:SHORTDESCHELPER if you haven't already. (2) As far as I can tell, it's basically the wild west as far as short descriptions go! There's very little guidance on them, so no one really knows how important the 40 character guidance is imo. My understanding is that this is relevant primarily for mobile searches; say I vaguely remember that the Pentagon Papers was an "Ellsberg", so I type in the search bar and my mobile browser auto-populates a list of results as I type with various Ellsbergs and their short descriptions. In that context, the short description serves "to distinguish the subject from similarly-titled subjects in different fields". But it's not useful if it's too long (since it will cut truncated in the display). So, I think it's fine in this case either way? It probably depends on what kind of disambiguation people tend to need to do for Daniel Ellsberg. Cheers, Suriname0 (talk) 15:02, 6 October 2020 (UTC)
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