Q. Robert McNamara, who was secretary of defense during the Cuban missile crisis, once said, “The indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will destroy nations.” Why haven’t we seen nuclear weapons used since 1945?
A. We have seen nuclear weapons used many times. And they’re being used right now by both sides in Ukraine. They’re being used as threats, just as a bank robber uses a gun, even if he doesn’t pull the trigger. You’re lucky if you can get your way in some part without pulling the trigger. And we’ve done that dozens of times. But eventually, as any gambler knows, your luck runs out.
Mr. Kingsbury is a member of the editorial board.
Daniel Ellsberg, famous for leaking the Pentagon Papers and his activism against nuclear weapons, announced recently that he has been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Mr. Ellsberg, now 91, copied the military’s secret 7,000-page history of the Vietnam War and gave it to The New York Times and The Washington Post in 1971. The government sued to stop publication, but the Supreme Court defended the First Amendment right of a free press against prior restraint.
The papers produced a wave of anger at the government for having lied about the conduct of the war, which was already unpopular. In 1971, Mr. Ellsberg faced numerous charges, including violating the 1917 Espionage Act, but charges were dismissed in 1973 because of government misconduct.
In 2021, he revealed that the government had drawn up plans to attack China with nuclear weapons during a crisis over the Taiwan Strait in 1958.
With tensions rising between the United States and China, public distrust of the government running high and nuclear threats being lobbed over the war in Ukraine, his life’s work seems as relevant as it ever was.
Mr. Ellsberg agreed to speak with Times Opinion at his California home about the lessons he’s learned.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q. As you look around the world today, what scares you?
A. I’m leaving a world in terrible shape and terrible in all ways that I’ve tried to help make better during my years. President Biden is right when he says that this is the most dangerous time, with respect to nuclear war, since the Cuban missile crisis. That’s not the world I hoped to see in 2023. And that’s where it is. I also don’t think the world is going to deal with the climate crisis. We’ve known, since the 2016 Paris agreement and before, that the U.S. had to cut our emissions in half by 2030. That’s not going to happen.
Q. The number of people with the security clearances to view classified material has expanded, perhaps exponentially, since the leak of the Pentagon Papers, and I wonder, aside from a few people like Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, why haven’t there been more Dan Ellsbergs? Why aren’t there more people who, when presented with evidence of something that they find morally objectionable, disclose it?
A. Why aren’t there more? It’s a question I’ve often asked myself. Many of the people whistle-blowers work with know the same things and actually regard the information in the same way — that it’s wrong — but they keep their mouths shut. As Snowden said to me and others, “Everybody I dealt with said that what we were doing was wrong. It’s unconstitutional. We’re getting information here about Americans that we shouldn’t be collecting.” The same thing was true for many of my colleagues in government who opposed the war. Of course, people are worried about the consequences.
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