Talk:Daniel Ellsberg
"Ellsberg is believed to be a member of the Council on Foreign Relations."
- belived BY WHOM?
- Can anybody justify the perpetuation of this statement?
Removed all earlier comments. The following is sufficient for me:
- WYNC Radio, May 22, 2002: "LES GELB: The Council [on Foreign Relations] is an organization of about 3800 people from all around the country, and they're, they're leaders and thinkers, and you know the membership runs from Newt Gingrich to Dan Ellsberg and it includes everybody who's been secretary of state for I don't know how many years, 50 years almost; almost every defense secretary; every NSC advisor; and it is critical that there be one place in our country where people who have differing views can come and discuss matters with one another without fear that it's going to become a public issue."
However, Ellsberg's name appears on CFR membership rosters from at least 1993 onward, including 2001. Regardless of how far he may have distanced himself, he's very much still one of the "boys", particularly close to Leslie Gelb.
I think it's important to be careful with the conclusions we draw here. The Council on Foreign Relations has a fairly large and diverse membership. Some supported the war in Iraq, for example, and some didn't.
As for Ellsberg, he began his career as part of the Washington establishment but has clearly parted ways with it. He became one of the most prominent critics of the Vietnam war and has been equally critical of the war in Iraq. His example was cited as the inspiration for several CIA analysts such as Ray McGovern to come forward publicly and denounce the Bush administration's claims regarding intelligence information about Iraq.
The New American, which is the source for some of the information above, is a publication of the John Birch Society, which has a habit of drawing connections based on thin evidence and conjecture to support far-reaching conspiracy theories. A case in point is the article above, which which seems to suggest some pattern of collaboration between figures as different as Daniel Ellsberg and Henry Kissinger. The reality is that Henry Kissinger was working in the White House as Nixon's secretary of state, planning the war in Vietnam, while the same Nixon White House sent covert operatives to secretly spy on Ellsberg because of his outspoken opposition to the war. They weren't exactly collaborating.
Ellsberg himself has written at length about his time within the U.S. foreign policy establishment and his reasons for leaving it. --Sheldon Rampton 16:04 28 Jan 2004 (EST)
