Gellhorn, Martha -- Letter (1971) to Daniel Ellsberg

Dave — Fri, 29 May 2026 07:47:01 +0000

The Founding Fathers cannot have intended a President and his small group of appointed advisors to perform like a monarch surrounded by his court. As if the people’s representatives and the people themselves were a general nuisance, and the job is to keep the whole tiresome bunch quiet: manipulate them.

Martha Gellhorn (1908–1998) American novelist, journalist war correspontent
Letter (1971) to Daniel Ellsberg
(Source)

An open letter Gellhorn wrote to Daniel Ellsberg. In 1971, Ellsberg, a military analyst, leaked the "Pentagon Papers" to the media, a top-secret Defense Department study of US goverment decision-making in the Vietnam War. He was charged under the Espionage Act of 1917, but due to government misconduct and illegal evidence-gathering, all charges were dismissed in 1973.

More importantly, the US government, under Richard Nixon, tried to impose a preemptive injunction to stop the Papers' publication by US media. The Supreme Court ruled in New York Times Co. v. United States that such prior restraint of publication was unconstitutional.

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Gellhorn, Martha -- Letter (1971) to Daniel Ellsberg