Daniel Ellsberg: "Whatever Julian Assange is guilty of, I'm guilty of"
The Magazine which published this article, Exberliner, is Berlin's English-language magazine for culture, reportage and politics. We're Germany's largest publication in English. Founded in 2002 by three journalists from the UK, Romania and France, Exberliner is a self-financed, totally independent publishing venture.
January 5, 2021
https://www.exberliner.com/features/julian-assange-trial-2020/daniel-ellsberg-wikileaks/
You were vilified in your time, weren’t you?
That’s true. It was very hard for someone who grew up during the Second World War, a Marine Corps veteran and a patriot, to be called a traitor. For decades I used to say there’s some words you just can’t ever get used to – that turns out not to be true. It’s been 50 years now, and I finally can get used to anything, even that. It doesn’t bother me anymore. Snowden, Assange and Chelsea Manning were all subject to death threats. Joe Biden called Assange a “hi-tech terrorist.”
In my own case, I learned that there was an effort from the Oval Office to bring 12 Cuban Americans up from Miami to “incapacitate Daniel Ellsberg totally” – those were the words. So when Hillary Clinton joked, “why don’t we drone him?”, referring to Assange, I don’t think that was entirely a joke.
How do you explain the total change of attitude towards you? During cross-examination, the prosecutors were trying to oppose you and Julian Assange, the good Pentagon Papers and the bad WikiLeaks. You were portrayed as a responsible whistleblower, unlike Snowden and Assange.
A lot of people seem to want a foil to say that they aren’t against all leakers, just specifically against Julian. They want to target him, as well as Snowden and Manning, without saying that they are against unauthorised revelations altogether. I was available for people to point to and say, we support ‘good whistleblowers’.
Whatever Julian Assange is guilty of, I’m guilty of. The notion that he’s guilty of something that I, the good guy, wasn’t, is just false.
But that’s just ridiculous. Whatever he’s guilty of, I’m guilty of. The motives were similar. The difference being, I was a source, he was a publisher. He was like the New York Times and the others – more courageous than they are, obviously. But I identify with him totally. The notion that he’s guilty of something that I, the good guy, wasn’t, is just false.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (L) and Pentagon Papers Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg meet at London's Frontline Club after the publication of the Iraq War Logs in 2010
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