Biography
Daniel Ellsberg was a former RAND Corporation military analyst and State Department official who in 1971 leaked the Pentagon Papers — a top-secret 7,000-page Department of Defense study of U.S. decision-making in Vietnam from 1945 to 1968 — to the New York Times and 16 other newspapers. The leak revealed that successive administrations had systematically deceived Congress and the public about the war. Indicted on June 28, 1971 under the Espionage Act and related statutes; Ellsberg faced 115 years in prison. His May 1973 trial ended in a mistrial after the court learned of Nixon-administration misconduct (the "Plumbers" had burglarized his psychiatrist's office, illegally wiretapped him, and offered the trial judge the FBI directorship). Ellsberg spent the rest of his life as a leading anti-nuclear, antiwar, and whistleblower advocate, defending Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, and Julian Assange. Died June 16, 2023.
The October 1978 Poetry Project newsletter reports that Ellsberg had been arrested three times while supporting the Rocky Flats Truth Force occupation. It describes his August 9 Nagasaki Day press conference and a die-in followed by approximately seventy-seven arrests. His planned November trial remained prospective; the article supplies no complete individual custody interval. Source: https://www.poetryproject.org/file-library/58-newsletter.pdf#page=3
Contemporary anti-nuclear custody report
The Livermore first-person jail account individually names Dan Ellsberg among the February 1, 1982 arrestees taken through the holding cage to Santa Rita, and describes him participating in the following day’s jail-solidarity discussion. He declined citing out after discussion. The account does not identify him among the unnamed 29 who spent five additional days, so no such duration or release date is assigned. This is a separate actual jail episode, not the 1971 Pentagon Papers case.
National No-Nukes Prison Support Collective newsletter No. 11, April 15, 1982, original pages 2.
On November 13, 1972, the Supreme Court denied review in Russo et al. v. Byrne, No. 72-307, arising from the Pentagon Papers prosecution. Justice Brennan would have granted review. In dissent, Justice William O. Douglas argued for an adversarial hearing on electronic surveillance involving a defense lawyer and for protection of lawyer-client confidences under the Sixth Amendment. Douglas questioned the government's foreign-surveillance justification after examining the intercepted conversation. These were the dissent's criticisms, not a majority ruling that resolved the surveillance issue.
A March 2003 report described Ellsberg being released from Washington jail to attend an antiwar teach-in. His stated intention to return does not establish further custody.
Ken Butigan’s remembrance of Louis Vitale identifies Dan Ellsberg among nineteen people arrested at the close of the first forty-day Lenten Desert Experience at the Nevada Test Site in 1982. They were handcuffed, bused to Beatty and briefly jailed before Nye County Justice Court Judge William Sullivan. The account describes refusal of the $100 bail demand and the judge’s order to release them rather than allow a continued vigil in jail. It does not establish an exact individual admission or physical release day or a measured duration. This Nevada episode is distinct from his separately documented February 1, 1982 Livermore detention in California.
Right Livelihood’s March 21, 2011 notice confirms Daniel Ellsberg was arrested at the White House antiwar demonstration on March 19 and again at the Quantico Manning-solidarity demonstration on March 20. Art Laffin’s contemporary White House account states all arrestees were charged with failure to obey a lawful order. The Quantico account names Dan Ellsberg among the road sitters and reports all arrestees released by 6:30 a.m. Monday; it does not establish Ellsberg’s individual release day or a jail-admission interval. The two arrests are distinct episodes.
Sources: https://www.nukeresister.org/2011/03/24/invasion-anniversary-actions-lead-to-arrests/; https://rightlivelihood.org/news/daniel-ellsberg-arrested/
The August 2013 Hiroshima Day report identifies Daniel Ellsberg among thirty-one arrested after a gate-blocking demonstration at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on August 6, 2013. Deputies cited the participants and released them. The Nuclear Resister, contemporary source report 632.
Cindy Sheehan’s firsthand account places Daniel Ellsberg and Louis Vitale in her detention van during the late-night February 24–25, 2012 Vandenberg protest. After processing, they were driven away from the base and released in Vandenberg Village at about 3 a.m. on February 25. The arrest chronology crosses midnight, so the initial arrest day is not narrowed to one of those two dates. The Nuclear Resister, contemporary source report 798.
