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Title: Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg ISBN: 0-670-03030-9 Publisher: Viking Books Pub. Date: 10 October, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.39 (33 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A History Primer with an Everyman's Voice
Comment: Daniel Ellsberg¡¯s Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers has many facets, which taken together make for a very stimulating and liberating narrative. However, like the Nixon administration and many former colleagues in the Department of Defense, I had some reservations about Mr. Ellsberg¡¯s decision to violate his agreements not to reveal top secret documents to the public. In the process of reading Mr. Ellsberg¡¯s account, however, I freed myself from that burden. Secrets is nearly 500 pages of history, honest narrative, an epic journey of the soul, and a practical primer on constitutional affairs.
Ellsberg, the ¡°thief¡± as President Nixon called him, began his career as a Marine officer, earned a doctorate in Economics from Harvard, worked fro the Rand Corporation, and then worked for Robert McNamara in the Defense Department, beginning on August 4, 1964. He not only read mountains of top secret memos and field reports from Vietnam, but wrote more than a few himself. Even before he discovered a study Secretary McNamara commissioned, Ellsberg had heard significantly dissenting opinions from high ranking officials and Rand employees concerning President Johnson¡¯s handling of the Vietnam War. After long stays in Vietnam, Ellsberg finally began to notice the discrepancies between official reports and actual events. But not until the summer of 1969 did Ellsberg contemplate publishing the Pentagon Papers, after he met several people associated with the resistance against the war and reading about civil disobedience.
It¡¯s that decision to publish a top secret document, which raises the central issue of the entire book: the proper moral and legal way to dissent. As Ellsberg argues, the agreements government employees and contractors sign not to divulge classified information are only part of executive branch administrative regulations. This code of secrecy helped to create the aura of the imperial presidency, whose enduring legacy was the history of the facts documented in the Pentagon Papers, which successive administrations hid from the public. Ellsberg rationalized his decision, by arguing, that the Nixon administration, just like all the other administrations since Truman, was subverting the Constitution. By making the information public, Ellsberg intended to redress this offense, and to allow the public, through the legislature and judiciary, to challenge President Nixon¡¯s prosecution of the war.
I worked in similar environments as the ones Ellsberg describes, so his account of his indoctrination into the world of classified information is both familiar and eerie. I still believe espionage and leaking information is harmful to national security, but Ellsberg, in his defense, recounts instances of other officials leaking information for political gain. Furthermore, the Nixon administration¡¯s rationale for muzzling Ellsberg initially did involve protection of the sources, but it¡¯s own record. Ellsberg himself sanitized the information, and, until he succeeded in handing the documents to the New York Times, chose few people, mostly congressional leaders and family, to read the accounts.
Along with the central narrative concerning Vietnam, Secrets also reveals much about Ellsberg¡¯s family, personal motivations, the resistance movement, and government officials, such as Kissinger. If the information in the Pentagon Papers were not disconcerting enough, the information discovered from declassified Nixon White House tapes is positively sickening. Finally, the connection revealed on those tapes between Nixon¡¯s campaign against Ellsberg and the Watergate scandal are just depressing. Through out the narrative, though, is the resolutely calm, everyman¡¯s voice Ellsberg manages to convey. Ellsberg also tries to present conflicting accounts of conversations and other published information to support his case.
Although the Pentagon Papers are immense, and Ellsberg does quote from many sections, I would like to read more. Even after 500 pages, there are many questions left unanswered. Many of the people Ellsberg mentions also published their own accounts and perspectives on Vietnam, including Vann and Sheehan. Secrets in no way distracts one from discovering more, and it¡¯s an excellent place to start, because Ellsberg himself shows how to make the journey. Ellsberg¡¯s opinion about the war is clear enough, but the reader can reach his/her own. Fortunately, though, no one has to go through the ordeal he did.
Rating: 5
Summary: Fascinating and important
Comment: Ellsberg has presented us with a fascinating explanation of how an "elected monarchy" behaves when it wants something and is not getting it. According to Ellsberg, five presidents wanted victory in Vietnam, and were not getting it. Rather than bend to reality and suffer a bruised ego, their reaction was to escalate the war and to lie about it. The author makes a very plausible case that had it not been for the Pentagon Papers and Watergate, the war would have been continued with total disregard of an opposition political trend, and the escalated bombing resulting in mass civilian casualties.
Ellsberg himself is a unique figure in that he is an intellectual, a former marine, and worked at the highest levels in advisory capacity. Reading this book not only gives the reader the history of the Pentagon Papers, but raises questions about the nature of government and leadership. Will leaders degenerate into an "elected monarchy" unless their actions are constantly monitored? If so, what are the best mechanisms to ensure that the leaders are accountable and that their actions are fully disclosed, without bogging them down to total ineffectiveness? I highly recommend this book. Lets learn from history, so we are not doomed to experience such things as the Vietnam war again.
Rating: 5
Summary: Top notch
Comment: p83... I noted where the book went from where the editors had too much control (I assume they put in the attempts a short bios on key figures where are so disjointed from the rest of the book), to where the story takes on a life of its own. I expected a dry, academic read, but was pleasantly surprised that I had misjudged Ellsberg's capabilities as a writer and storyteller.
Ellsberg does a masterful job of presenting a lot of "inside" information, and making it accessible to the lay-person. The book is not overloaded with governmental alphabet soup as are too many military/political accounts. Better than presenting the information, Ellsberg takes us on a journey--his personal journey--tying together many threads of detail into a single story, and allows the reader to share the "aha!" (perhaps the "oh, no!") he must have felt as he unraveled the events forcing his hand to leak Top Secret information. Having read "In Retrospect" a few years ago, I'm left wanting to revisit that work as there are disparities between the two "I was there" accounts which, if my memory serves, may simply be a result of how McNamara was "spinning" the facts--but why are we still "spinning" now...
From this story, Ellsberg provocatively takes us beyond the Pentagon Papers to their impact on the world's most important personalities. I would very much like to see a sequel to this book which investigates the implications of the Pentagon Papers in more depth.
Whatever the first 80ish pages lacked is more than made up by the rest of the story.
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Title: The Pentagon Papers by George C Herring ISBN: 007028380X Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages Pub. Date: 01 January, 1993 List Price(USD): $13.07 |
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Title: A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam by Neil Sheehan ISBN: 0679724141 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 September, 1989 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam by Brian VanDeMark, Robert S. McNamara ISBN: 0679767495 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 March, 1996 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Wild Man : The Life and Times of Daniel Ellsberg by Tom Wells ISBN: 0312177194 Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan Pub. Date: 01 June, 2001 List Price(USD): $32.50 |
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Title: Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides by Christian G. Appy ISBN: 067003214X Publisher: Viking Books Pub. Date: 22 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
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