The 90-year-old Pentagon Papers leaker details top secret plans in 1958 to destroy Taiwan and warns that similar discussions are going on in the Pentagon today.
Dan Ellsberg, the legendary whistleblower who has been arrested more than 75 times for protesting the U.S. warfare state, has not mellowed with age.
At an online conference hosted by the University of Massachusetts-Amherst honoring Ellsberg’s legacy on April 30th and May 1st, the 90-year-old legend blew the whistle yet again.
He disclosed a secret government study, authored by Pentagon staffer Morton Halperin, which reveals that Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was ready to nuke Taiwan during the 1958 crisis over Quemoy and Matsu Islands during the height of the Cold War.
Morton Halperin. He led the project to do the “McNamara study,” or Pentagon Papers and became part of Ellsberg’s defense team. Halperin had nothing to do with Ellsberg’s revelation of a partly classified paper he wrote in the late 1950s. [Source: one.org] 
[Source: afhistory.org]
Ellsberg told Democracy Now host Amy Goodman that, in a meeting with the Joint Chiefs, Dulles conceived of a plan to use seven-kiloton weapons with the expectation that the Soviet Union, Communist China’s ally at the time, would hit Taiwan with nuclear weapons in response.
Dulles, Ellsberg said, was “willing to destroy Taiwan to save it since the entire U.S. world position depended on it,” adding that “the history of 1958 deserves to be read” but that “one-third of Halperin’s study”—which Ellsberg has in his safe—”remains classified.”
Ellsberg stated further that “what I have just said subjects me to the same charges as Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning whose material was only secret—this was top secret.”
In 1971, Ellsberg had faced a 115-year jail term for leaking the Pentagon Papers, a classified war study which exposed years of government deception on Vietnam.
At the time, he worked for the Defense Department and RAND Corporation, the Air Force’s think tank, after serving in the U.S. Marines in the 1950s and from 1965-1967 as a State Department official in South Vietnam during which time he became disillusioned with the Vietnam War.
Ellsberg decided to leak the Pentagon Papers after hearing draft resister Randy Kehler speak movingly at a War Resister’s League conference and reading books on Gandhian non-violent civil disobedience.
In his interview with Goodman, Ellsberg said that the 1958 documents are relevant now because “the same discussions about Taiwan are going on today in the Pentagon” and there is “still talk about destroying it.”
Admiral Charles J. Richard, who currently heads the U.S. Strategic Command, called on the nation’s military and civilian leaders to seek new ways to face threats by Russia and China, including the “real possibility” of “nuclear conflict.”
According to Ellsberg, Richard sounds like he is “criminally insane.”
With a high risk of nuclear war, “people in government have to show the moral courage of Snowden, Manning and Daniel Hale [drone whistleblower].”
“Humankind,” Ellsberg said, “may not otherwise survive.”
From the Pentagon Papers to Watergate
In an article published in The Conversation on April 23rd, UMASS-Amherst historian Christian G. Appy, who helped convene the Ellsberg conference, detailed how President Richard Nixon’s (1969-1974) obsession with Ellsberg because of his leaking of the Pentagon Papers led directly to Watergate.
The Pentagon Papers covered the years 1945-1968, i.e., before Nixon became President; however, Nixon feared that Ellsberg would leak other information that could undercut some of his key policies and result in his impeachment.
The Nixon administration consequently indicted Ellsberg under the Espionage Act and Nixon established a special White House unit under Egil Krogh, Jr., known as the Plumbers, which broke into Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office seeking incriminating information about him.
The burglary was a dress rehearsal for the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel, which led to Nixon’s likely impeachment and resignation.
Ellsberg meanwhile had his case dismissed because of the White House’s illegal actions.
Ellsberg: “I Was a Danger to Nixon’s Vietnam Policy”
During his plenary address at the UMASS-Amherst conference, Ellsberg told moderator Charles Sennott, founder of the Ground Truth Project, a grassroots news organization, that Nixon burglarized his psychiatrist’s office because he thought the psychiatrist had documents exposing his secret plans to end the Vietnam War and wanted information he could use against Ellsberg for blackmail.
According to Ellsberg, Nixon’s plan centered on removing U.S. ground troops to undercut the anti-war movement, sustaining funding for the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN), expanding the air war and threatening North Vietnam with a nuclear attack—which Nixon thought would “force Ho Chi Minh [North Vietnam’s leader] to sue for peace as soon as they heard.”
Nixon had gotten the idea for threatening nuclear weapons while serving as Vice President under Dwight Eisenhower who had made successful nuclear threats in the Taiwan straits and in Korea.
According to Ellsberg, Nixon was committed to preserving U.S. proxy Nguyen Van Thieu’s leadership over South Vietnam for at least another eight years—even at a huge cost in lives.
Thieu was a major sticking point in the peace negotiations on which Nixon would not compromise.
The reason was that Thieu had played a major role in helping Nixon win the 1968 presidential election by helping him to sabotage peace talks with North Vietnam.
Thieu later bragged: “I elected Nixon.”
Nixon had to keep Thieu in power so he would not release communications revealing Nixon’s sabotage of the peace talks—an act of treason, i.e., an impeachable offense.
According to Ellsberg, “Nixon actually did what Donald Trump was accused of doing—colluding with a foreign power to win an election.”
And this is why Nixon went after him—because he did not want his treason exposed.
[New York Times picked up on this story and published an article on the topic. Ellsberg has put the key documents on his website. See links below.—Editors]
https://archive.org/details/The1958TaiwanStraitsCrisisADocumentedHistory_201712/page/n3/mode/2up
CovertAction Magazine is made possible by subscriptions, orders and donations from readers like you.
Blow the Whistle on U.S. Imperialism
Click the whistle and donate
When you donate to CovertAction Magazine, you are supporting investigative journalism. Your contributions go directly to supporting the development, production, editing, and dissemination of the Magazine.
CovertAction Magazine does not receive corporate or government sponsorship. Yet, we hold a steadfast commitment to providing compensation for writers, editorial and technical support. Your support helps facilitate this compensation as well as increase the caliber of this work.
Please make a donation by clicking on the donate logo above and enter the amount and your credit or debit card information.
CovertAction Institute, Inc. (CAI) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and your gift is tax-deductible for federal income purposes. CAI’s tax-exempt ID number is 87-2461683.
We sincerely thank you for your support.
Disclaimer: The contents of this article are the sole responsibility of the author(s). CovertAction Institute, Inc. (CAI), including its Board of Directors (BD), Editorial Board (EB), Advisory Board (AB), staff, volunteers and its projects (including CovertAction Magazine) are not responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect statement in this article. This article also does not necessarily represent the views the BD, the EB, the AB, staff, volunteers, or any members of its projects.
Differing viewpoints: CAM publishes articles with differing viewpoints in an effort to nurture vibrant debate and thoughtful critical analysis. Feel free to comment on the articles in the comment section and/or send your letters to the Editors, which we will publish in the Letters column.
Copyrighted Material: This web site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. As a not-for-profit charitable organization incorporated in the State of New York, we are making such material available in an effort to advance the understanding of humanity’s problems and hopefully to help find solutions for those problems. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. You can read more about ‘fair use’ and US Copyright Law at the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School.
Republishing: CovertAction Magazine (CAM) grants permission to cross-post CAM articles on not-for-profit community internet sites as long as the source is acknowledged together with a hyperlink to the original CovertAction Magazine article. Also, kindly let us know at info@CovertActionMagazine.com. For publication of CAM articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: info@CovertActionMagazine.com.
By using this site, you agree to these terms above.
About the Author
Jeremy Kuzmarov holds a Ph.D. in American history from Brandeis University and has taught at numerous colleges across the United States. He is regularly sought out as an expert on U.S. history and politics for radio and TV programs and co-hosts a radio show on New York Public Radio and on Progressive Radio News Network called “Left on Left.” He is Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine and is the author of five books on U.S. foreign policy, including Obama’s Unending Wars (Clarity Press, 2019), The Russians Are Coming, Again, with John Marciano (Monthly Review Press, 2018), and Warmonger. How Clinton’s Malign Foreign Policy Launched the U.S. Trajectory From Bush II to Biden (Clarity Press, 2023). Besides these books, Kuzmarov has published hundreds of articles and contributed to numerous edited volumes, including one in the prestigious Oxford History of Counterinsurgency . He can be reached at jkuzmarov2@gmail.com and found on substack here.
[…] Former Pentagon whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg stated that Richard sounded like he was “criminally insane.” […]
[…] of deaths—could have been avoided along with the Taiwan Straits crisis of 1958, which nearly resulted in a nuclear apocalypse, and Taiwan would not have been separated from Mother […]
[…] in millions of deaths—could have been avoided along with the Taiwan Straits crisis of 1958, which nearly resulted in a nuclear apocalypse, and Taiwan would not have been separated from Mother […]
it is now 2021, not 1958, and everyone involved with this article is dead or near death
[…] Research, May 10, 2021CovertAction Magazine 7 May […]
I found word for word what Daniel Ellsberg said about Taiwan. It sounds so ambiguous and illogical that while very relevant in the year 1958 is probably not as relevant in the year 2021. It is so open to different interpretations that I would not take this too seriously.
“Secretary of State John Foster Dulles said that “Nothing seemed worth a World War until you looked at the effects of not standing up to its challenge. Would we as joint Chiefs of Staff all recommend using nuclear weapons to defend Quenoy and Matsu and Taiwan and possibly using 7-10 kilotons of weapons with the expectation that the Russian allies of the Soviets and China would respond and would hit Taiwan.”
They were talking about in other words of destroying Taiwan to save it because our entire world position would depend on it.”
What is the source of this most recent whistle blowing related to Taiwan and China? Is there a you tube video or newspaper article about this. I was trying to locate the source of this information but was unable to find it. Why did he wait so many years before telling the world about this?
Re the text “At the time, he worked for the Defense Department and RAND Corporation, the Air Force’s think tank, after serving two tours with the CIA and Marines in South Vietnam during which time he became disillusioned with the Vietnam War.” and the caption “Ellsberg served two years in South Vietnam as a Marine”.
Is this supposed to mean that Ellsberg was in South Vietnam when he served in the Marines in the mid-1950s? Or that he was back in the Marines (at least nominally) when he was in South Vietnam in the mid 1960s?
In reference to this paragraph below I could be wrong but I think the plan was to nuke China not Taiwan, as I think the United States wanted to protect Taiwan. I could be wrong though as I am not an expert.
“He disclosed a secret government study, authored by Pentagon staffer Morton Halperin, which reveals that Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was ready to nuke Taiwan during the 1958 crisis over Quemoy and Matsu Islands during the height of the Cold War.”