Sparsely, Sage and Timely
A support group for whistleblowers
In the past seven years, Daniel Ellsberg and I have kept crossing paths – often in unexpected moments. It all began in June 1977. Rose Piaggio, then of Lagunitas, turned 19, and on her birthday she asked if I would drive her and her mother Marge to Red Rock Beach.
The nude beach is just south of Stinson Beach and within Mount Tamalpais State Park. It was a Friday, and my day was free, so naturally I was more than happy to be their chauffeur. We had barely gotten settled on the beach when Ellsberg wandered over and began chatting – all of us naked as jaybirds. It was a friendly conversation, and that evening Ellsberg joined us in celebrating Rose’s birthday at an Italian restaurant in North Beach. Also joining us was Ellsberg’s son Michael and friend Ron Kovic.
Kovic, of course, is the Vietnam War veteran whose life is portrayed by actor Tom Cruise in Born on the 4th of July. Ellsberg is a former military analyst who in 1971 leaked The Pentagon Papers to Congress and the press.
For readers not old enough to remember, here’s what happened. Ellsberg during the war was working for the RAND corporation, a think tank which the Defense Department had hired to assess the military situation. The assessment, Ellsberg discovered, revealed the White House had been directing a broader – and less successful – war in Southeast Asia than it had told Congress or the American public.
The revelation is credited with shortening the war by two years, but it also resulted in Ellsberg’s receiving a 12-count indictment on charges of espionage, theft, and conspiracy. If convicted, Ellsberg could have been sentenced to more than a century in prison.
However, after Ellsberg’s trial was well underway, John Dean, former counsel to President Nixon, told federal prosecutors and then Congress that White House staff had ordered a break-in at the office of Ellsberg’s psychoanalyst. The White House had hoped to discredit Ellsberg with information from his psychiatric file, but once the break-in was revealed, his case was thrown out of court on grounds of governmental malfeasance.
In any case, Ellsberg, Kovic, Rose and Marge Piaggio, Michael Ellsberg, and I spent an evening with some of us trading war stories and most of us discussing John Hilton’s 1933 novel Lost Horizon which Ellsberg had just reread. (The story of a Himalayan paradise called Shangri-La comes from the book.) Most of us also spent the evening drinking red wine, and when a street vendor came into the restaurant, Ellsberg and Kovic bought flowers for everyone – including each other.
Michael, who was then a student at Brown University, and Rose spent time together for the rest of the summer. This, in turn, led to the Ellsbergs inviting Rose, Marge, and me (the faithful driver) to their home in Kensington for dinner and a hot tub. Again we enjoyed a convivial meal, but that’s not the image that remains clearest in my mind.
After we were greeted at the door by Patricia Ellsberg, the rest of our group moved into the kitchen, where hors d’oeuvres were spread out. But I heard low music coming from somewhere and followed it into the living room. Alone and seated at a grand piano, Ellsberg was playing a piece by Mahler. A fine pianist, Ellsberg was so absorbed by the music that for awhile he didn’t notice I’d walked in on him. Thankfully, he kept on playing while through a picture window I could see the sun was setting over the Golden Gate. I was entranced.
Our latest meeting occurred Sunday in Nicasio when Gina and John Thompson invited me to their home where Ellsberg would be speaking on his latest undertaking. Ellsberg is a college lecturer when he’s not writing books or traveling around the country giving talks. At the Thompsons’, he would be talking about something called The Truth-Telling Project.
I must admit I arrived with a bit of apprehension, having no idea whether I was showing up for a seance or a political rally, but the gathering was neither. About 20 people were on hand to hear him, and by chance an equal number of wild turkeys were also present, watching through the window when not pecking in the Thompsons’ garden.
Daniel and Patricia Ellsberg were there to tell us about a group called The Truth Project, which was born during a conference Sept. 9 and 10 at American University. The Ellsbergs had organized the conference, which was called When Silence is Complicity: What Should Officials Do? The event brought together whistleblowers from throughout the United State and Europe. All had put their careers in jeopardy to let the public know about government coverups.
"One of the most valuable developments to come out of the [conference]," Patricia Ellsberg wrote afterward, "was that all the high-level whistleblowers were able to meet each other for the first time.... All the whistleblowers spoke of how isolated they had felt before, and that [after] meeting each other, they no longer felt that way...
"They decided as a group that they wanted to create a resource to encourage and support new whistleblowers." A support group for whistleblowers? This nascent Truth-Telling Coalition sounded a bit touchy-feely, but once Daniel Ellsberg explained what it was all about, it began to sound practical and worthwhile.
The problem, as he explained it, is that once a whistleblower offends his government by revealing an ugly secret, not only is he likely to lose his job and possibly face prosecution, he is also likely to be ostracized by his friends and associates. For example, Ellsberg said, friends may go out to dinner with a whistleblower only to find federal agents wanting to debrief them afterward. Soon longtime associates start staying away, fearing they will get into trouble if they socialize with someone on their government’s enemies list.
The coalition, however, is not a support group for recovering whistleblowers. Just the opposite. It encourages "patriotic" whistleblowing. At the moment, Ellsberg said, people in government need to come forward with the memos and reports that expose what has really been going on in Iraq.
Congress and the public have a right to see Administration memos that document the White House’s deceptive propaganda for our going to war with Iraq, Daniel said. They also have a right to see reports outlining the chain-of-command that led to US atrocities in Abu Ghraib prison. The existence of such documents is known, Daniel claimed, but what is needed is for someone with access to them to provide copies to Congress and the press.
Equally pressing, he added, is that whistleblowers act now rather than waiting until thousands more people die. Daniel criticized himself for not leaking the Pentagon Papers sooner. He praised the Administration’s former advisor on terrorism, Richard Clark, for having just revealed that within 24 hours of Al Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks, Vice President Dick Cheney asked staff for findings that would justify an attack on Iraq. This despite our government’s knowing that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Ellsberg added, however, that if Clark had made his revelation two years earlier, he might have been able to head off the war.
Is the Truth-Telling Project basically an anti-Iraq war, anti-Defense Department movement? Not at all, Daniel replied and mentioned federal whistleblowers who gave Congress copies of reports on the dangers of Thalidomide, as well as on the full dangers of tobacco.
Getting the truth out requires convincing government workers that whistleblowing is not disloyal, Ellsberg noted. Those interested in getting the full skinny on The Truth-Telling Project can check its website at <www.ellsberg.net/truthtellingproject>.