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"On February 17, without much warning, I was diagnosed with
inoperable pancreatic cancer," Ellsberg, 91, said in a statement on
Twitter. "I'm sorry to report to you that my doctors have given me
three to six months to live."
The Pentagon Papers, whose official title was "Report of the Office
of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force," were a
multi-volume, top-secret government study of how the U.S. ended up
in a bloody stalemate in Vietnam.
The revelation of parts of the study was considered a bombshell
because the Pentagon Papers contradicted years of government
assurances about the war.
In 1971, Ellsberg, at the time a governmental consultant who had
helped prepare the study, leaked the documents to the New York Times
and other newspapers.
The documents shifted the public's understanding of the war. They
showed that successive U.S. administrations had secretly enlarged
the scope of American military action in Vietnam even as U.S.
leaders became convinced the war was unwinnable.
After the revelations, the U.S. Justice Department brought criminal
charges against Ellsberg for leaking the documents to the media. The
charges were dismissed in 1973 after a mistrial in 1972.
Ellsberg, who will turn 92 in April and has been a human rights
advocate and an anti-war activist for decades, said on Thursday he
chose not to do chemotherapy. He added that he had assurance of
"great hospice care" when needed.
Despite the diagnosis, Ellsberg said he was not in physical pain and
was continuing to do interviews and webinars.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington. Editing by Gerry Doyle)
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