Daniel Ellsberg - Watergate Scandal

The Watergate Scandal was a political scandal that took place in the 1970's at the Watergate office complex in Washington DC and the Nixon Administration's attempt to cover up it's involvement in the Democratic National Committee's break-in. The scandal led to the resignation of president Richard Nixon, and the trial, conviction, and incarceration of 43 of Nixon's top administration officials. One of the men involved in the scandal was Daniel Ellsberg.

Daniel Ellsberg was born in Chicago, Illinois on April 7th, 1931. He attended Harvard University and graduated in 1954, left Harvard for the Marine Corps, and finished his PhD in economics in 1962. Ellsberg served in the Pentagon in 1964 under the Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara then served two years in Vietnam working for General Edward Lansdale working as a civilian in the State Department. In 1967 he contributed to a top-secret study of classified documents regarding the Vietnam War that had been commissioned by McNamara. These documents became known as the Pentagon Papers. He was one of the very few people that had complete access to the documents. In 1969 Ellsberg secretly made several copies of the Pentagon Papers. The papers revealed that the government knew early on that the war would most likely not be won by the United States and that keeping it going was potentially pointless. Ellsberg wanted to take action so he spoke to a few sympathetic U.S Senators but that didn't work. He also shared the documents with The New York Times correspondent Neil Sheehan under confidentiality but Sheehan broke his promise. 
On June 13th, 1971 The New York Times published the first nine excerpts and commentaries. The Times was prevented from publishing their articles for 15 days by court order and the Nixon Administration. On June 30th The Times was allowed to publish freely. The New York Times didn't report Ellsberg as their source but he still went into hiding for thirteen days. The release of these papers was embarrassing for the people involved in he Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations. John Mitchell, Nixon's attorney general, issued a telegram to The Times ordering that they stop publication but the refused and the government sued. The New York Times won the trial before the Supreme Court. The Nixon administration responded to the leaks by campaigning against further leaks and to Daniel Ellsberg personally. 
On June 28th, 1971 two days before the Supreme Court Ruling saying that the federal judge was wrong about the right of The New York Times to publish the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg publicly surrendered to the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts in Boston admitting that he gave to documents to the press. He was under many charges that added up to a 115 year sentence. On May 9th there was evidence that Ellsberg was being taped by the FBI without a court order. Due to the governmental misconduct, all charges against Ellsberg were dropped in 1973. 






Sources: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/watergate/james.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg