Trouble tonight at eight eastern on cspan q a. You can listen to q a and all of our podcasts on our free cspan. Now app. Daniel ellsberg has passed away at the age of 92. He is best known for leaking sensitive documents on the vietnam war, known as the pentagon papers, which many believe helped to end the longest u. S. Conflict of the 20th century. The disclosures would also lead to a Landmark Supreme Court decision on freedom of the press. In 2019, the university of massachusetts amherst acquired the papers of Daniel Ellsberg and next from the school he talks about his career and his fight against the proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. This is just over 2 hours. All right. Good evening. Good afternoon. Good evening. Were going to get started. So greetings and welcome to the 21st annual friends of the umass librarys fall reception. Im simon nehme, dean of libraries here at Umass Amherst. And today i have the honor of welcoming you to a very, very special program planned to celebrate the acquisition of Daniel Ellsbergs personal archive by the university. This collection represents an important addition to the umass librarys special collections and University Archives and to the university. The umass librarys special collections are nationally recognized for our strength in documenting the history of unrest, protest advocacy and ultimately change in our society. With a particular emphasis on the individuals and groups who are champions of change and social justice. We think our many friends and donors who support the work of special collections with their continued support and our commitment to preservation and public access. Daniel ellsbergs archives will be available for teaching. Learning and research locally and regionally, through and through digitization globally. For generations to come, i would like to take this opportunity to thank daniel and Patricia Ellsberg for sharing this incredible resource with the Umass Amherst libraries, and in doing so with the world. Daniels archives are in good Company Alongside the papers of w. E. B. Dubois. Horace mann, bond, kenneth feinberg, brother david. Steindel rast the new england yearly meeting archive and many, many other agents of social change. We feel the archive of Daniel Ellsberg is exactly where it belongs. Acquiring this collection, a collection like this involves the work of many, and i just like to take a moment to acknowledge a few individuals. Our head of special collections, rob cox, and the entire staff of special collections and University Archives here at Umass Amherst. Thank you. Id also like to thank a chancellors hoover swami and our other leaders on this campus, in particular, dr. Bob feldman and dr. Bob pollin, for recognizing umass as the rightful home for this archive and for working with us to make it so. Thank you. So to tell us a little bit more about how umass came to acquire this amazing collection. I would like to introduce our chancellor campus of the swami, or as hes known to most of us here at Umass Amherst swami. Please join me in welcoming chancellor sebastian. Good evening and thank you, simon. Welcome, everyone, for what certainly promises to be a very thought provoking evening. I would like to acknowledge my good friend, retired state representative for amherst, ellen storey, who has joined us today. Ellen, im not sure where you are. Could you please acknowledge that. Its always a pleasure to have ellen on campus. Id like to take a minute to share how we arrived at this evening. As the Washington Post once observed, Umass Amherst has, quote, developed a reputation as perhaps the single most important heterodox Economics Department in the country. You can read, however you want to read that, end quote, that our economics faculty have earned this prominence reflects a certain unwilling to accept conventional thinking. This attitude has was evident when dr. Robert poland, distinguished professor and codirector of the political Economics Research institute. Perry, as we call it, heard through their economic animist grapevine. Yes, that is one that Dan Ellsbergs papers, all 500 boxes were in his basement character izing this discovery as, quote, crazy. Sorry, dr. Ellsberg brother poland summoned all the resourcefulness expected of a Umass Amherst distinguished professor of economics and in a remarkably short time helped foster the relationship between the ellsbergs and umass. Along the way, bob feldmann, my senior advisor, became an invaluable intermediary working with ellsbergs and anonymous donor who stepped up to support acquisition of the papers this evening on behalf of the university community. I want to thank bob feldman. I thank our generous donor, and i thank professor pollan for once again eschewing orthodoxy and enriching the university. Everyone in this room is affected by the life and work of dan ellsberg, some by living through the tumult of the seventies, while others, such as our students, are currently experiencing his historical imprint in a National Moment of deja vu. I belong to the former camp. Thats how old i am. In 1971, at the age of 20, i boarded a plane for the first time, traveling from my home in bangalore in india, to Indiana University in bloomington to pursue a doctorate in physics. When i arrived, the campus and the nation were in the throes of unrest. The vietnam war was just ending and watergate was about to break. I was immersed in conversations that ordinary only as a physicist. I wouldnt be a part of. Those Tumultuous Times taught me about the us constitution. Transparency, politics and rule of law. In the years to come, this unexpected part of my education was invaluable in advancing my administrative career. As i stand here this evening, leading this celebration almost 50 years since the pentagon papers were leaked after Steven Spielberg turned the events into a movie starring meryl streep and tom hanks, its tempting to view Dan Ellsbergs life through the diffused light of a hollywood lens. But the movie could have ended very differently indeed. Dan ellsberg leaked the pentagon papers to the media in 1971, exposing decades of deceit by american policymakers during the vietnam war, when he knew it was very possible his actions could lead to a lifetime in jail. He had a family and an enviable career. He had everything to lose. Yet he chose the truth. His commitment to protecting the sanctity of the truth for the good of his country outweighed his personal wellbeing. It was a tremendous act of courage and conviction given this universitys long standing commitment to social justice and accessibility and our fundamental mission as a strong hold for freedom of expression. It is our deep privilege to receive the papers of Daniel Ellsberg as guardians of this exceptional collection. The university is committed to making the work of Dan Ellsbergs life broadly accessible, ensuring it remains in the public sphere, informing our discourse for decades to come. On behalf of the entire university, i warmly welcome dan and patricia into the Umass Amherst community. Please join me in welcoming dan ellsberg to the state. Steps taken. Thank you very much. Can you hear me back . Can you hear me in the back . Yeah. Very problem. Leave your arms or something, please. Thats good. Okay. This is a wonderful occasion for my wife. And i was just thinking that i havent really been part of an institution as i am now since i left rand. That was quite a while ago. And basically, in 1970. And its wonderful to be here, chancellor, because for me, i so much super swimming appreciate the fact that my archive will be here. But i in particular appreciate the appreciation that ive gotten from you, from robert cox, from robert pollin. Its really warmed my heart and patricia is very much so. We were very impressed when the vice chancellor, bob feldmann, representing you actually flew across the country almost immediately after hearing the possibility of getting my archive here. We were very impressed sitting around the table while we with these people, robert cox, robert fellman, robert pollin. We had to agree. Rob. Bob. Robert, the distinguished in conversation somehow and its just i feel wonderful and i have been reviewing as a result, of course, some of those 500 boxes that weve sent about 250 so far as they slipped from my hand. So ill kicking and screaming here in a way. I look at these boxes and i look at the files. Wait, wait, wait. I have to reread this. It looks fascinating. Various things youve collected. One thing i realize is this is, of course, pretty much covers my life history. And something i realized is that that life is almost exactly extensive with the nuclear era. Thinking of that, that im very surprised that im still here at 88 and even more surprised that youre all still here. Exactly. And youll see why i feel that maybe at the end of the evening, although theres some bad news, a lot of bad news here. Actually, the good news is we are here and that i think you may appreciate how lucky weve been. Actually to have come through this so far. And perhaps what we may need to do to assure that some of you will live as long as i have 88 and your grandchild and their children will have a chance to be lucky, like us. It doesnt go without saying by any means. When i say my life has been quite extensive with the nuclear era. Im thinking of the fact i was born in 1931. In 1932. Chadwick discovered what Ernest Rutherford had conceived earlier. The existence of the neutron. And in 1933, one year later, when i was two years old, fdr had just become president. Hitler had just come to power. Leo zijlaard and i see my physicist young friend here, so were swimming. Nothing on this. Leo szilard conceived in a particular moment the possibility of a Chain Reaction which he patented actually, and to keep it secret, patented with the admiralty hoping that it would not. The idea would not come to the country he had just left germany in 1933. Now hitler had become chancellor as a minority party, but in the Largest Party had been named by hindenburg as chancellor in january as i recall. Szilard tells in his memoirs, which are called, by the way, posthumously, his version of the facts. And he refers to the fact that he had told someone, one of his friends, i think victor, from hungary, that he was writing some notes for a memoir just for god. And victor said, well, dont you think god knows the facts . And he said, he doesnt know my version of the facts. So in this he tells that he had a bag packed for since 1932 in his apartment in berlin, ready to leave if hitler came to power, which he did come to power in january. But two days after the reichstag fire, which we still dont know for sure whether it was set by the nazis, as gehring said, Hermann Goering said at one point, or whether or not its not clear. But in any rate, it was used by the nazis immediately as a reason to cancel civil liberties, go into emergency state, a state of emergency that basically they got hindenburg to sign. The first thing was to end the privacy of the Postal Service and to listen to all telephone calls as the almost the first thing that had to be done in this state. And zijlaard says that he picked up his bags, which he said required only fashioning them. And he left the room and he left germany two days later and he said it was not because. I thought that the people approved of what hitler would proceed to do, but because of their nature as obedient followers, there would be no real resistance to it. Many people thought when i grew up, by the way, the germans that we saw in the newsreels and whatnot, i was only obey orders and something were a very peculiar culture, very unlike us. And i have to tell you, at 88, i and this is no joke. Thats wrong. And its very clear to me now that what happened in germany was not because of any peculiarity of the germans, as a matter of fact. But szilard was essentially right that there not organized resistance in the way that a lot of things going on. I wont go into all that history. But anyway, szilard left and in 33 he was in london, where he read the newspaper, one morning that rutherford, who had first conceived of the neutron, had said of chadwicks discovery of the neutron, yes, this is very interesting and it will make for very interesting science. But the idea that it will be possible and in fact, youll be able to bombard atoms with neutrons. And they had just actually split a lithium atom at that point. And he said it will have interesting effects, but it is pure moonshine to believe that. Well get power from the neutral nucleus and leo szilard being who he was took that is quite irritated by this moonshine and he took it as a challenge. And that very day a reading that as he tells the story, he was waiting for a red light to change just across from the British Museum on london Street Corner as the light changed to green, he stepped off into the street and in the middle of the street, the thought occurred to him that if a nuclear reaction, if a reaction occurred by a bombard of neutrons in the atom, if neutrons were released, that could affect other atoms. You could get a Chain Reaction, and thats how you would get more power out when you put it. As robert four had supposed. And he that his friend victor, by the way, later said the only thing wrong with that story was the idea that he had never known leo szilard to wait for a light to change. He said, hey, know, attention to red light or something wrong with that story. But anyway, he alert did tell it off and he patented that. Some years went by. Your and in 1938 germans scientists i had a reaction which to other german scientists one of them a woman, lisa meitner, realized had split the uranium atom. And he wondered, could this be the atom that ive been thinking about now for five years . So he borrowed money and he got a laboratory and whatnot to in order to test out whether other neutrons were released in the course of this. And let me break here for a moment. Why . Why im telling the story. I first heard of the possibility of an atom bomb. Not at my youngest years, obviously, but when i was 13, in 1944. Now, how many people here are saying 75 or older . Are there . I suspect some. I mean, let me get a good look put your hands up. Keep them up for a minute. How many of you with your hands up keep your hand up, if possible. If. Right. Well, were aware of the possibility of an atom bomb before august six, 1945. Anybody . I dont see. I had a very peculiar experience. None of you were in the Manhattan Project very secret where the bomb was being made until that point. And of course, i wasnt either, nor was my father. He was in fact, a Structural Engineer, building factories for the production of bombing planes. He was the chief Structural Engineer in the ford willow run plant, which produced 24 bombers on an Assembly Line like cars for ford. And he took me out there once, i think, when i was 12. And the Assembly Line had planes starting out in just bare fuselages and moving along like cars, car bodies, people working on drilling, doing this and that. Or like i have to say, like carcasses and a slaughterhouse just moving along this line, which was a mile and a quarter long on this line. At the end, they dropped off, they were fueled up and they flew off to make war. So thats what my father was doing and he didnt know anything about atom bomb then. But i was in a i was a scholarship student in a private School Called cranbrook in bloomfield hills, where most of my peers were were actually sons of car manufacturers. And so forth, and quite welltodo. I was a student. I didnt want to didnt suffer for that at all, but i was in the just as a sophomore in the class in 1944, september, october, about now of i had a teacher named Bradley Patterson teaching social studies, and he was teaching this a concept called by a man named awkward cultural lag. The idea that over the millennia, regularly technology had advanced faster than culture in various ways, but specific be more than institutions for controlling the technology that the morality laws institutions lagged behind looking back on a question whether they ever really caught up or whether thats the possibility anyway, that obviously a notion that kept getting rediscovered in the course of nuclear era. I wont go into that, but its amazing how often i discovered that people were reinventing this idea as they looked at Nuclear Weapons. But anyway, Bradley Patterson in 1944, when the atom bomb was super secret, censored no mention harry truman as Vice President knew nothing of it at that point. But Bradley Patterson had a teacher, it turns out. He told me, after seeing his name in my book, he looked me up in his nineties. Hes retired and now he had turned later became secretary of the National Security council under eisenhower. But when he was a teacher in this high school, we were looking at ash and he said there is an element, its a its an isotope of uranium two, three, eight. You to 35, which is capable of a Chain Reaction that would produce a bomb. A thousand times more powerful than a blockbuster. Now, those of you who raise your ha