A life sentence. and we ll get to that trial in a moment. but i just want to get inside your head a little bit. the young daniel ellsberg, because it seems to me. i wasn t that young. i was a0. 0k. well, pretty young. from my current perspective, very young. but the point is, you in some ways were trained to be a security hawk. you were working in america s sort of nuclear strategy. that was one of your key concerns. you clearly believed in america s position on the cold war. in fact, i think it s fair to say that you supported intervention in vietnam. yes and no. i d been in vietnam on a research group for the defense department in 1961. it was actually looking into limited war research and development. because previously under eisenhower, all the work and all the r&d had gone into nuclear weapons. and kennedy said, no,
The young daniel ellsberg, because it seems to me. i wasn t that young. i was a0. 0k. well, pretty young. from my current perspective, very young. but the point is, you in some ways were trained to be a security hawk. you were working in america s sort of nuclear strategy. that was one of your key concerns. you clearly believed in america s position on the cold war. in fact, i think it s fair to say that you supported intervention in vietnam. yes and no. i d been in vietnam on a research group for the defense department in 1961. it was actually looking into limited war research and development. because previously under eisenhower, all the work and all the r&d had gone into nuclear weapons. and kennedy said, no, we should have some research and development on non nuclear. so, i was in vietnam
Troops in vietnam, and that we wouldn t be bombing, as his opponent, senator goldwater from the air force wanted to do. he says, no, we re not going north and we re not going south. we re not getting out, but we re not going to escalate. i d been working since the day i arrived as a full employee in the pentagon on the escalation of vietnam and on election day, we didn t have time to go vote. we were working on carrying out goldwater s plan. the man who went down by a sort of referendum on this issue that day. but what i m saying is, if you can t tolerate government lying, you can t be in any government at a high foreign policy staff position for a week. and i d been doing it almost ten years. in other words, i was very used to lying. this was rather egregious. but when i discovered from the early days of the pentagon papers that we ve been lying from our involvement in vietnam
Wanted to do. he says, no, we re not going north and we re not going south. we re not getting out, but we re not going to escalate. i d been working since the day i arrived as a full employee in the pentagon on the escalation of vietnam and on election day, we didn t have time to go vote. we were working on carrying out goldwater s plan. the man who went down by a sort of referendum on this issue that day. but what i m saying is if you can t tolerate government lying, you can t be in any government at a high foreign policy staff position for a week. and i d been doing it almost ten years. in other words, i was very used to lying. this was rather egregious. but when i discovered from the early days of the pentagon papers that we ve been lying from our involvement in vietnam from the beginning. i understand that clearly you felt that was entirely wrong.
President lula is expected to attend the wake on tuesday before the funeral procession. pele died on thursday aged 82. now on bbc news, it s hardtalk with stephen sackur. welcome to hardtalk. i m stephen sackur and today i m in beautiful northern california to meet the man once described by henry kissinger as the most dangerous in america. in 1971, that man, my guest daniel ellsberg, leaked the so called pentagon papers. he exposed decades of us government lies about the war in vietnam. the nixon administration was enraged. they tried to destroy daniel ellsberg. they failed. and today he is still