A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPORARY SECRETDaniel Ellsberg may be forgiven for anointing Julian Assange his heir apparent as he did in December 2010, when he defended Assange against accusations of treason and terrorism and explicitly compared himself to the WikiLeaks impresario. As the catalyst behind the 1971 release of the Pentagon Papers, the Defense Department’s highly classified “secret history” of the Vietnam War, Ellsberg is renowned as a staunch crusader for the freedom of information, so it stands to reason that he would view Assange as a kindred spirit, the standard-bearer for a new