Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers

Rating:
Summary: "We are eating our young"
Review: "Ellsberg is the most dangerous man in the world and must be stopped at all costs," Henry Kissinger proclaimed in the Oval Office on March 2, 1971. President Richard Nixon was equally fearful of Daniel Ellsberg because the highly regarded government insider had copied 7,000 pages of Top Secret documents about U.S. involvement in Vietnam and released it to the New York Times for publication.

Ellsberg, a former U.S. Marine infantry officer, Vietnam expert and dedicated cold-war warrior witnessed how the war was eating our young and decided to expose dark White House policy. On that note, "Secrets; A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers," is a startling exposure of how the White House often conducted destructive policy behind closed doors and lied to Congress and the American public about it. The author aptly summed up the situation he found when he finished researching years of Top Secret historical reports on Vietnam..."you don't have to be an ichthyologist to know when a fish stinks."

Ellsberg discloses (among many other things) that in March of 1969 William Beecher of the New York Times reported the Top Secret bombing of Cambodia. Beecher's story had been particularly embarrassing to Nixon and Kissinger because it revealed details on the operation that the White House had meant to keep from Secretary of Defense Mel Laird and Secretary of State William Rogers. Ellsberg also demonstrates how Nixon and Kissinger orchestrated a strong government denial that forced the quiet death of Beecher's New York Times report.

The author concludes that, "it appeared that only if power were brought to bear on the executive from outside," would the situation change. He realized just like many other Americans that the Vietnam War was a endless, hopeless bloody stalemate. Ellsberg also understood that we were supporting a corrupt South Vietnam government that primarily wanted to enrich themselves and who consistently ignored the needs of its suffering population.

As background...I myself am a former cold-war warrior, having spent two tours in Vietnam with an elite USMC intelligence unit. Moreover, I am well aware of the legendary work of USMC Lt. Colonel William Corson, who Ellsberg visits while in Vietnam and astutely observes (pgs. 173-175) the promise of his daring pacification program. As a long time admirer of William Corson I agree with Ellsberg that the Colonel deserves "rare praise." To this end, I applaud how Daniel Ellsberg has conducted himself. Those who critized the failures of the war from the inside were ignored. Ellsberg figured this out and bravely exposed the failures to the American people. Highly recommended.

Bert Ruiz





Rating:
Summary: Painfully Relevant
Review: "Secrets" is Daniel Ellsberg's superb memoir detailing the period of his life from childhood to his acquittal of criminal charges for releasing the now famous Pentagon Papers. This book is a superb read on several levels. It is fascinating and important historical source, since Ellsberg participated in defense planning as a Rand researcher and as a Pentagon deputy during the critical period when the United States decided to occupy Vietnam. Equally as important is the ethical dilemma Ellsberg chronicles of having to choose between the safety and comfort of maintaining his bureaucratic sense of loyalty or making dangerous personal sacrifices for the greater good of his country and his conscience. And contrary to most political memoirs that are often tediously written and sprinkled with excessive namedropping, this book reads like a novel.

Dan Ellsberg began his career as a self-described cold warrior. Prior to obtaining a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard, Ellsberg served in the Marines as a peacetime company commander. After completing his graduate education he worked as a researcher in the Rand Institute where one of his projects involved estimating the total number of global casualties resulting from a nuclear exchange between the United States and Russia (hundreds of millions of people within the first twenty-four hours). Ellsberg undertook this work because since childhood he found the practice of civilian terror bombing, as he understood it, to be morally repellant. Thus it should come as no surprise that when called to work in the Pentagon as the assistant to Assistant Secretary of Defense John T. McNaughton, Ellsberg already brought a strong sense of moral purpose to the job, a situation that ultimately resulted in profound consequences both for him and for the government he served.

While serving in the Pentagon, Ellsberg witnessed the immediate confusion of the Gulf of Tonkin incident and the Johnson Administration's subsequent decision to falsify the particulars of that incident as a pretext for invading Vietnam. Readers will probably be struck with the same sense of amazement that Ellsberg was about how America's military bureaucracy actually functions. From one perspective, Ellsberg was stunned by the sheer volume of crises that top officials including his boss and the president's cabinet, had to deal with in rapid succession. While Ellsberg admired his colleagues and superiors he often wondered if it was really possible to run a government by crisis hopping in this manner.

From another perspective, Ellsberg was deeply disturbed by the standard policy of lying within the military bureaucracy. It may surprise readers to know that the military never had any illusions about the possibility of winning the Vietnam War. In 1964, according to Ellsberg, top military officials briefed the president and his cabinet with astonishing accuracy on the precise number soldiers required (1.5 million), for a specific duration of time (8 years), and a large number of resulting casualties (50,000) and no guarantee of victory. Despite such dire warnings, a sanguine and poorly defined policy was implemented, and when it quickly began to yield disastrous results the president and his top officials lied to each other and to the American people about what was really happening. While Ellsberg correctly concedes that there are many instances when it is practical for the highest levels of government to conceal information from the American people, he also observes a kind of bureaucratic pathology at work. Top officials including McNamara often provided favorable reports to the president, which they personally did not believe in and which they knew would result in disaster but which their positions and careers compelled them to do. As a result Ellsberg notes, the highest levels of government were not able learn from their mistakes in Vietnam and to adjust accordingly. Instead top officials developed what Ellsberg terms a process of systematic "anti-learning" which in layman's terms means that they saw what they wanted to see instead of what was actually happening.

Ellsberg's observation of the Pentagon and Executive Branch's process of systematic anti-learning was powerfully reinforced by his subsequent personal experience when he served as a State Department official in Vietnam. Ellsberg was brave enough and fortunate enough to traverse unsecured roads in hostile territory with the legendary civilian general, John Paul Vann. He witnessed both the plight of bogged down American soldiers and the resourcefulness of the determined Vietnamese guerillas and concluded that even if nuclear weapons were introduced, the war was ultimately unwinable. Ellsberg quickly concluded that America was faced with a war that its leaders had always known they could not win, that it was currently in the process of losing, and which the highest levels of the military and government refused to view in realistic terms.

Ellsberg's opposition to the war took place gradually and culminated in the realization that America was in the process of destroying a generation of young men by sending them to war or imprisoning them for opposing the war. Shortly afterward, Ellsberg decided to risk a life sentence in prison by releasing the Pentagon papers to congress. The Pentagon papers are an astounding collection of documents both in their volume (several thousand papers) and in the frankness with which they make record the official process of lying to the American public. Many well-meaning congressional officials at first offered to produce the Pentagon papers to their colleagues on Ellsberg's behalf but ultimately declined for career reasons. Consequently Ellsberg released them to the media who subsequently disseminated them to the public.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants a first hand view of how the highest levels of American government work. Be warned, however, that while Ellsberg's story is ultimately worth knowing, his revelations about the government are frightening and depressing. It is interesting to note that in several public speeches ...Dan Ellsberg has frequently drawn parallels to his own experiences chronicled in this book, and to America's current foreign policy with respect to Iraq. Obviously this is an issue that readers must decide on their own, but if anything else, it makes "Secrets" a highly relevant book to read.

Rating:
Summary: Good
Review: Daniel Ellsberg is famous for leaking the Pentagon Papers a series of secret studies. This occurred during the war and was important in providing material for those who argued against the war. It was a decision that led to him being put on trial but the scandals of the Nixon White House led to the case against him being dismissed.

One would have not thought that this would be much material to based a four hundred page book on but Ellsberg turns out to have an interesting background and he has a lot to say. He started out as a strident anti-communist cold war warrior. Despite this background he was always an opponent of methods of war which led to significant civilian policies such as bombing. He regarded the allied bombing campaigns in Europe and Japan as being close to war crimes.

He served as a marine and also spent a good deal of time in Vietnam as an observer with the military. During his time in Vietnam certain truths began to dawn on him. The first was that the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) was in poor shape. It had as an officer class people who came from the upper strata, and most had little training or enthusiasm for the job. Lower ranks were poorly paid and motivated. The ARVN in fact spent most of its time avoiding the communist forces. The tactics used by the communists were to maintain their force strength and to only become involved in combat when they wanted too. Direct American involvement had the effect of propping up the regime but it was not effective in reducing the level of the communist forces. Thus the doom of South Vietnam was inevitable. The continued presence of American field troops however was a disaster for the country. The Americans relied on the use of high firepower either by bombing or the use of artillery support. This generally took place in inhabited areas and led to unacceptable civilian casualties and infactructure loss.

Ellsberg however became involved about the morality of the whole thing. Five American Presidents had supported the continuation of the South Vietnamese State, something that was set up as a colonial offshoot by the French. The reason for the support related to issues irrelevant to the welfare of the people of Vietnam and related to domestic American politics. Presidents did not like to be seen as weak or responsible for the spread of communism thus they supported the continuance of the South Vietnamese regime, agreeing to coups, supporting unelected leaders all for reasons of vanity. Ellesberg released the Pentagon Papers to show that the actions of all the American Presidents involved had acted in the full knowledge that their policies were unlikely to succeed and had considerable civilian cost.

The book is fascinating despite the years that have gone by since the conflict. The biographical material is pretty much bare boned and only those things which are relevant to the war are discussed. The book is readable and it states with considerable clarity why the war was wrong.

Rating:
Summary: A History Primer with an Everyman's Voice
Review: 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:
Summary: Fascinating and important
Review: 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:
Summary: Fascinating and important
Review: 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:
Summary: well-written and insightful
Review: Ellsberg's memoir of his life in the 60s and early 70s is fascinating and difficult to put down. It chronicles his journey through the dangerous jungles of Vietnam and through the dangerous jungles of Washington, DC, and his conversion from hawk to dove. He effortlessly carries the reader through his tenure under Robert McNamera, walking point on the ground in Vietnam, his RAND consulting career, life on the lamb, and courtroom battles with the Nixon administration which bleed into the Watergate scene.

Through his discussion of the contents of the 4000 pages of the Pentagon Papers, he systematically refutes the Cold War "domino theory" that the last five presidents had succumbed to. He exposes the governments' entire Vietnam strategy as one of ideological rhetoric, misunderstanding, and miscalculation.

While an exciting page-turner, it is also a depressing/disturbing book based on what it reveals about the Executive branch. Regardless of one's politics, the reader forever will look differently at how his government handles and reacts to foreign wars and agression.

Rating:
Summary: Transformation of an Insider
Review: I honestly did not think I could read and re-read a five hundred page book with detailed accounts of history going back to World War II. But after listening to Kutler's presentation of Richard Nixon's secret tapes in Abuse of Power, I felt that I needed to know more about the history of Southeast Asia and of the American presidency, particularly that of Richard Nixon.

The book is worth the concentration required to focus on such complex material written by a stunningly brilliant man. Although I grew up during the escalation of American conflict in Vietnam, I had no idea it dated back to Truman and continued through five presidencies, most of it secret. The public relations label of "Watergate caper" had stuck with me from my early twenties, and I had no idea of the breadth of dirty tricks of which Watergate was merely the tip of the iceberg. I conclude that the firing or resignation of virtually everyone at the top levels of the White House, including the president, was not to clear up a mess, but to further obfuscate. Much evidence had already been burned or shredded or erased or "deep-sixed," as one top-level official ordered. As the effort to paint the Watergate break-in as a "caper" by over-zealous Cubans and a few die-hard loyalists unraveled, mostly because these loyalists were not receiving the hush money they demanded, it becomes clear that the crimes of the Nixon administration go far beyond Watergate or the burglary of the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist. We're talking proposed kidnappings, physical assaults, illegal wiretaps, false leaks to the press, faked memos, and perhaps even murder.

We certainly know that thousands of Americans, and hundreds of thousands of Southeast Asians were killed and mutilated for presidential purposes kept from the American public.

Ellsberg states that most Americans have a built-in filter that prevents us, no matter how hardened or cynical, from believing that our own administration would lie to us or commit criminal acts. Ellsberg himself struggled for decades with his growing awareness that his insider status as a consultant to the White House, including two years in the battlefields of Vietnam, led not to the glory of democracy, but to the deaths of innocents.

Secrets is no simplistic self-justification for leaking the Pentagon Papers, the act for which Daniel Ellsberg became famous. Daniel Ellberg was a brilliant young man who innocently entered the lower level of administration after graduating from Harvard, then serving in the Marine Corps. He believed that he was serving his country. He fought hard against his growing awareness that the White House was enfolded in a tissue of lies.
He risked his life to research Vietnam "on the ground," even though he'd already served his military duties.

What is fascinating about this book in terms of tone is that Dr. Ellsberg never stoops to name-calling or castigation. A true researcher, he allows evidence to speak for itself.

Rating:
Summary: Disagree with Ellsberg's politics, but very engaging
Review: It is definitely not hyperbole to say the Daniel Ellsberg possesses one of the most brilliant minds to be found in American politics over the last 50 years. Ellsberg is even more impressive by that fact that he was not limited to 'ivory tower' foreign policy as a professor or a research analyst. In addition to attaining a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard, Daniel Ellsberg served as a Marine Officer, a military advisor in Vietnam, and Pentagon official. This diversity of academic, policy and combat experience lends Ellsberg unparalleled credibility when speaking on matters of foreign policy.

"SECRETS" is a memoir that tells the story of how a hard core "Cold Warrior" became the most influential antiwar activist and a key figure in the Watergate scandal. At first glance, its size (500+ pages) and dry topic may seem very intimidating, but one will soon find the book very engaging. Ellsberg's narrative style makes the book at once autobiography, history, policy analysis, and moral lesson.

I picked up this book at the library, knowing nothing about Vietnam, Daniel Ellsberg, or The Pentagon Papers. Although the book is written from an antiwar view, many of Ellsberg's arguments about what was wrong with the Vietnam War, seem well formulated even if you disagree with him. He presents very interesting moral questions about whether and interventionist war is ever moral. One criticism about the book is that Ellsberg never takes time out to consider the morality (or lack thereof) of the communist forces or their Soviet patrons. I was a little disappointed by his in-depth criticism of American policies with regard to Indochina, without even a cursory criticism of North Vietnamese and Soviet policies.

Rating:
Summary: Top notch
Review: 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.