Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers

“In 1971 I released the Pentagon Papers,  a 7,000-page top-secret study of U.S. decision-making in Vietnam,  to the New York Times and the Washington Post. In this memoir, I describe the two years I spent in Vietnam as a U.S. State Department observer, and how I came to the decision to risk my career and freedom to expose the deceptions and delusions that shaped three decades of American foreign policy.” —Daniel Ellsberg

Sample Chapters and Reviews

Preface

Chapter One: The Tonkin Gulf, 1964

Chapter Four: Planning Provocation

Outtakes from Secrets, including anecdotes, explanation, analysis, and historical details not included in the book.

Buy the book on BarnesandNoble.com

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Reviews of Secrets:

“. . . should be required reading in the aftermath of the Iraq War. . .”
New York Review of Books

“As our understanding of the Vietnam War deepens with time and the experience of subsequent conflicts, we are likely to see Daniel Ellsberg’s Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers as a foundational document, a primary source on what was surely the greatest and defining catastrophe in 20th-century American history.”
San Francisco Bay Guardian

“The publication of Daniel Ellsberg’s memoir, ‘Secrets,’ at this particular moment is undoubtedly coincidental, but there is an eerie timeliness about it. . . . Some may be tempted to dismiss his arguments. . . . but skeptics should put aside their doubts and read the book. ‘Secrets’ is an often gripping account by a controversial figure of a tumultuous era that still troubles and divides us. It underscores the need to understand history in areas of the world whose destinies we presume to shape. It provides important insights into the national security bureaucracy that produced the Vietnam War, the system that helped sustain it and the ethos and code of loyalty among officials that held it together. If we’re looking for a warning signal as we teeter on the brink of yet another war waged on the basis of information considered too important to share with the public, we should look no further than in these pages.”
Los Angeles Times

“‘Secrets’ will be of value to readers interested in recent history for the light it sheds on America’s engagement in Vietnam. But it bears also on the present. It reminds us of the importance of dissent within democracies in time of war—a test that, with regard to Vietnam at least, America can claim to have passed, thanks in the end to its press, its courts and the courage of troublemakers like Mr Ellsberg.”
The Economist

“Daniel Ellsberg has released this memoir with an exquisite sense of timing. As Congress considers the third war resolution in 12 years—Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iraq again—Ellsberg begins his book with its Gulf of Tonkin resolution of 1964. That was the vote authorizing Lyndon Johnson to use military force in Southeast Asia ‘as the president determines’ . . . . Remarkable. . . . Conservatives, who resented Ellsberg 30 years ago, might tackle ‘Secrets’ with a new appreciation. His targets are just as often Democrats as Republicans, and one can easily accept his entire story as a tale of the mendacity of Big Government.”
Seattle Times

‘Secrets’ is more than an absorbing memoir. It offers new insights into the high crimes that taught Americans to distrust their government. . . . Ellsberg’s deft critique of secrecy in government is an invaluable contribution to understanding one of our nation’s darkest hours. . . . The picture he draws of life in the corridors of power—elitist advisers dashing down hallways at the summons of their masters, avidly concocting lies for all occasions, treating the public like a population of morons—leaves one fearing for our endangered democracy.”
San Francisco Chronicle

‘Secrets’ is not the hasty memoir of somebody in the news who is aware of how fast his star is fading. It’s long and meticulous; every scene is thoroughly researched and carefully paced, and fitted to its place in Ellsberg’s over-all political progression. Ellsberg encapsulates each of the anti-war movement’s main phases. The Pentagon section of ‘Secrets’ is a wonderful evocation of the intoxicatingly frantic routine of the overachievers who populate the next-to-the-top level of government. . . . The publication of ‘Secrets’ is uncannily well timed. Ellsberg’s first day of work in the Pentagon, in the summer of 1964, coincided with the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which became the basis for a congressional resolution that gave Lyndon Johnson almost unlimited authority to pursue the Vietnam War. Ellsberg establishes that the incident was not the military attack on an American ship that Congress thought it was, and that the Administration was cooking up evidence to justify a course of action it had already decided upon. Just a few weeks ago, Congress passed a resolution authorizing a war with Iraq, which gives the President the widest war-making latitude since the Gulf of Tonkin resolution.”
The New Yorker

“It is a dramatic, past-paced, and powerful tale. . . . And it’s publication at this time is important. . . . Ellsberg’s own explanation of his transformation is gripping. . . . his memoir is a compelling contribution to the literature that brings to life the human sacrifices required by every generation if it wishes to make the democratic process responsive and meaningful.”
The Nation

“A remarkable and riveting story that still shocks 30 years later. . . . Ellsberg creates page-turning human drama and suspense.”
Publisher’s Weekly

“. . .should be required reading in the White House. . .”
–Richard Larsen, Ventura County Star

“It should be required reading for anyone interested in what really goes on behind the scenes of the American political stage.”
Daily Times, Pakistan

“. . . a real-life political thriller that cogently traces the nation’s failed policy in Vietnam.”
USA Today

“. . . a page turner. . . . mesmerizing. . . . As the Bush administration prepares for war with Iraq, Ellsberg’s chilling description of government deception reminds us that secrecy is the greatest threat to democracy.”
–Ruth Rosen

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Winner, PEN Center USA Award for Creative Nonfiction, 2003

Winner, American Book Award, 2003

Co-Winner, Bay Area Book Reviewers Association Prize for Non-Fiction, 2003

Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist, 2003