Remembering Daniel Ellsberg

The famed whistleblower dedicated decades of his life to fighting war and secrecy

This morning, Daniel Ellsberg passed away at age 92. Dan was perhaps history’s most famous whistleblower and he had spent the last five decades fighting for peace, nuclear disarmament, and press freedom.

Dan announced four months ago that he had pancreatic cancer and that his time on this Earth would soon be coming to a close. Jacobin asked me to write an obituary. It was both an immense honor and the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to write.

I invite you to read it. In it, I recalled not just Dan’s legacy, but his continuing commitment to building a better world :

When I interviewed him for the fiftieth anniversary of the Pentagon Papers’ release, it was clear that he was far less interested in reminiscing about the past than carrying forward his urgent work to avert nuclear war and reform the Espionage Act. Honoring Ellsberg requires not just recalling him as a historic figure, but carrying on his work and legacy to dismantle the machinery of war that has claimed far too many lives and end its accompanying regime of secrecy that crushes truth-tellers while granting impunity to war criminals.