Former US official and anti-nuclear activist Daniel Ellsberg, 91, warned in an interview with the New York Times of the dangers of nuclear war due to the Ukraine crisis, and called for everyone's cooperation to avoid any escalation that threatens the fate of humanity.
Ellsberg is best known for leaking to the media in 1971 a secret study (7,<> sheets) of the US Department of Defense on the Vietnam War, known as the "Pentagon Papers", while serving as a military contractor with the department.
His leak of the documents caused a great stir in the United States at the time, and was the starting point for the global fame of the newspapers "Washington Post" (Washington Post) and the New York Times after publishing the documents, and then other newspapers, which made the US administration at the time issue a decision to stop publishing those documents under the pretext of harming the security of the country.
However, the US Supreme Court then decided to allow the publication of these documents, in application of the first article of the US Constitution, which stresses the inviolability of media freedom and the people's right to know, and later the judiciary dropped the charges against Ellsberg for revealing state secrets.
Wholesale dangers
"I am leaving a world in a very bad situation, going through the most dangerous phase in its history since the Cuban missile crisis," Ellsberg said. This is not the world I dreamed of seeing in 2023."
Ellsberg has cancer, and doctors told him he would only live for a few months.
The "Pentagon Papers Leaker" stated that the climate change crisis is one of the major problems facing the world, and stressed that countries will not take the necessary measures to confront this serious crisis, and will not commit to implementing the terms of the Paris Climate Agreements 2016, such as the United States, which is supposed to reduce carbon emissions by half by 2030, but that will not happen.
Ellsberg was surprised that there were no leakers of news of abuses within official institutions, and said that everyone is afraid, not only of going to prison for reporting irregularities, but also of losing their job, and the difficulties they will face in the future while looking for work and proving their ability to keep professional secrets.
Control System
Ellsberg criticized the system of protection of confidentiality, saying that it has become a "control system," highlighting that the application of this system often works to protect officials and departments from embarrassment and accountability.
He added that a congressional expert had confirmed in 1971 that only 5 percent of classified information met confidentiality standards, and said that the media had not fully investigated the secrecy system, its purpose and effects.
He warned of the danger of nuclear war, and said that the whole effort must go in the direction of avoiding its occurrence, and said that this type of destructive weapon is used as a threat in the Ukraine war by everyone, a situation similar to breaking into a bank with a gun to rob it, as long as he can find a way out for himself without using his gun, it is better for everyone, but the problem is that luck does not always use the gun.
He explained that the use of nuclear weapons by the United States in 1945 was a mistake, and warned that Russian President Putin's threat to use this destructive weapon "is not a joke", and therefore everyone should not be complacent in taking seriously to avoid the imminent nuclear danger.