Daniel Ellsberg, the man who copied and distributed the top-secret Pentagon Papers regarding the Vietnam War, will present a talk titled “Telling the Truth about Vietnam and Iraq” at Simpson College on Sept. 13 at 7:30 p.m. in Lekberg Hall of the Amy Robertson Music Center.

The Detroit-born Ellsberg studied economics at Harvard, graduating Summa Cum Laude in 1952. Following his undergraduate degree, Ellsberg attended King's College, Cambridge University on a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. After a year, Ellsberg returned to Harvard to complete a Ph.D. in Economics in 1962.

Ellsberg started work as Special Assistant to Assistant Secretary of Defense (International Security Affairs) John McNaughton at the Defense Department in 1964. He then moved to the U.S. Embassy in Saigon in 1965 as an employee of the State Department.

Ellsberg also worked for the RAND Corporation in 1959 and again in 1967, studying nuclear weapons and the Vietnam War. It was in this position that he gained access to the Top Secret McNamara study of American decisions leading up to and during the Vietnam War.

Ellsberg carried the 7,000-page study home with him and copied each of the pages, giving it to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the New York Times, the Washington Post and 17 other newspapers.

The explosive, top-secret papers unleashed tension between the government and the free press. The United States sued the New York Times and the Washington Post to prevent them from printing the information contained in the documents. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the newspapers and upheld the rights contained in the First Amendment.

Ellsberg was also put on trial on 12 felony counts, all of which were dismissed due to governmental misconduct. The misconduct played a role in the impeachment proceedings against President Nixon.

Ellsberg's speech is a Simpson-sponsored Forum event and is free and open to the public.