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Comment by rapnie | Hacker News Reader

> I see that New York Times is careful not to mention Manning, or Snowden, or Assange, or indeed draw any of the lines to the present day situation - lines that Ellsberg himself tried so desperately to draw in the last months of his life.

The Guardian does a better job in that regard.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/16/daniel-ellsb...

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“By two years in Vietnam, I was reporting very strongly that there was no prospect of progress of any kind so the war should not be continued. And that came to be the majority view of the American people before the Pentagon Papers came out."

And yet Nixon handily won in 1968 (even with Wallace kneecapping him in 5 states) and 1972.

While not well covered, Ellsberg would mention in person that his early issues weren't that it was a bad or immoral war but that the US wasn't committing the forces/effort required to win it. That's one of the reasons he waffled for so long.

Johnson had escalated the war, created it really, from the Gulf of Tonkin 'crisis'. By 1968, the war had failed and at some level everyone knew that. Johnson was not running for re-election and Nixon had a 'secret plan' to end the war. Nixon ran on that and that's why he won handily. He even conspired with Anna Chennault to sabotage the peace talks and get the South Vietnamese to believe they'd get a better deal from Nixon.

After winning, Nixon continued the war even after Congress reversed the Gulf of Tonkin war powers resolution. He even signed that reversal but then cynically claimed the power to defend the troops and remained.

As per usual.

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