I should have read Daniel Ellsberg’s excellent memoirs – SECRETS: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers – long ago. But better late than never.
Here is the lead of a piece I did on the book for the new issue of Freedom Daily :
Daniel Ellsberg is the kind of American who should receive a Medal of Freedom. Except that the Medals of Freedom are distributed by presidents who routinely give them to “useful idiots†and apologists for their wars and power grabs. It should be renamed the Medal for Enabling or Applauding Official Crimes in the Name of Freedom.
Ellsberg knowingly risked spending a life in prison to bring the truth about the Vietnam War to Americans. He had hoped truth would set Americans free from the spell of official lies. But the experience in Iraq indicates that Americans have learned little if anything from the Vietnam-era deceits.
(The Future of Freedom Foundation puts the full text of Freedom Daily articles online a few months after the print/email version appears).
