The American people should never completely trust what the government tells them, Daniel Ellsberg said at an event on Wednesday in the Wechsler Theater.
Ellsberg screened and answered questions about the documentary “Most Dangerous Man in America.”
The film tells the story of Ellsberg’s decision to leak the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times. The Pentagon Papers exposed top-secret military history of the United States’ involvement in Vietnam.
“People have to be vigilant and use all the capability they have to pursue a question,” Ellsberg said. “What government officials say should never be the last word.”
Following the screening, James Thurber, director of AU’s Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, moderated a question-and-answer session with Ellsberg.
Media coverage of the Vietnam War was more revealing than coverage of the Iraq War, Ellsberg said. During the Vietnam War, American citizens at home could watch wartime operations every night.
The Pentagon Papers were a wonderful aberration that really showed institutional courage, Ellsberg said.
“It was such a phenomenon of institutional opposition to the war in any country,” he said. “Publisher after publisher of 19 newspapers sought the papers and published the information. We hadn’t seen this [phenomenon] before and haven’t seen [it] since.”
At one point during the discussion, Thurber questioned Ellsberg about his thoughts on the government. Thurber asked Ellsberg how the government calculated lies.
“If you are trying to evaluate information, you should take into account the possibility that people are deliberately misleading you,” Ellsberg said. “And, I want to say that I don’t mean to exaggerate when I say that virtually everything that our government officials say to an audience is misleading in the sense that it holds information that he or she knows is relevant to that audience.”
The government persists in its secrecy and violation of the Constitution, he said.
“I’ve been saying for years that we had an executive coup in this country against the Constitution,” Ellsberg said. “In fact, I think Bush and Cheney were domestic enemies of our Constitution.”
When asked by one student if Obama has diverged from this trend of secrecy, Ellsberg said that Obama has not, and he has not fulfilled his promise of transparency either. There has not been a president who has forgone powers that had been handed down to him by his predecessors, according to Ellsberg.
Ellsberg discouraged students in the audience from considering a job in the Secret Service or the executive branch. He explained that those who take these jobs do not take the oath to the Constitution seriously enough.
“I’ve taken that oath a number of times, but I violated it along with all of my colleagues,” he said. “If you go in, you really can make a private commitment to the Constitution and have occasions to hold enormous power to save lives. That career would give you a chance to stop a war — but you have to ask yourself, am I the exceptional person?”
A student followed up by asking Ellsberg what drives a person to make those tough decisions.
Ellsberg said that in his case, he did not really know. It may have been his escape from death at a very young age or how he risked his life in Vietnam and no longer had any fear, he said.
“Ordinary people can show extraordinary physical strength and courage on the battlefield,” Ellsberg said. “What is unusual is moral or civil courage, which risks ostracism, estrangement and loss of respect. These risks are why very few people really do the right thing.”
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