(C) Common Dreams This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Lessons from a Whistleblower : UMass Amherst [1] [] Date: 2024-05 On the 24th floor of UMass Amherst’s W. E. B. Du Bois Library is a veritable treasure trove of insider information on modern United States history: a collection of more than 500 boxes containing the personal and professional archive of Daniel Ellsberg, one of the country’s foremost political activists and whistleblowers. The Ellsberg Papers are a diverse set of materials—government memoranda, handwritten notes, correspondence, speeches and interviews, photographs, 8 mm film, reel-to-reel tapes dictated from Vietnam, and articles, magazines, and books that caught Ellsberg’s interest. They provide a unique firsthand account of some of the most critical episodes and issues facing American society throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, from the Vietnam War and Watergate to state secrecy and First Amendment rights, to the threats of nuclear war and environmental catastrophe. Image Ellsberg, who passed away in June 2023, was an active force in promoting social and political change for decades. From his early years in government service contributing to war planning, he made a dramatic transformation from “hawk to dove” and became a leading anti-war activist. He is best known for leaking the top-secret Pentagon Papers to the press in 1971, for which he was indicted on a dozen felony charges and faced a possible prison sentence of 115 years. He was the first American charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 for leaking government documents not to a foreign agent, but to the American public. The Pentagon Papers exposed decades of deceit by the American government during the Vietnam War. President Richard Nixon’s illegal efforts to silence Ellsberg led directly to the Watergate scandal and Nixon’s resignation. Long after those remarkable events, Ellsberg continued to be a powerful force in American society, from his long-running anti-nuclear activism to his support for modern-day whistleblowers like Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning. In January 2023, UMass Amherst awarded Ellsberg an honorary degree in recognition of his “lifetime of truth-telling that demonstrates how dissent can be the highest form of patriotism and citizenship,” as Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy said. There are collections of activists and collections of people in government, but there are few, if any, that explore this Cold War time period from someone who held both roles. It’s a really unique insider-outsider perspective. Ellsberg Archivist Jeremy Smith ‘94 UMass Amherst’s Robert S. Cox Special Collections & University Archives Research Center (SCUA) acquired the Ellsberg Papers in 2019. In 2020–21, a yearlong seminar, Truth, Dissent, & the Life of Daniel Ellsberg, co-taught by Professor of History Christian Appy and Professor of Journalism Kathy Roberts Forde, was one of only a handful of courses offered in-person during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Graduate and undergraduate students in the seminar studied the life and times of Ellsberg, including interviewing Ellsberg and other key figures. Students conducted research and wrote papers on topics ranging from Ellsberg’s trial to his anti-nuclear activism to his unintended influence on the Peoples Temple cult. Out of that course grew a website dedicated to UMass’s work around Ellsberg; a podcast; and an international online conference commemorating the 50th anniversary of the release of the Pentagon Papers. In addition, an exhibit of select objects from the collection has been on display in the library since January 2022. Image Jeremy Smith '94 is the Ellsberg Archivist in the Robert S. Cox Special Collections & Archives Research Center. Today, the UMass Amherst history department’s new Ellsberg Initiative for Peace and Democracy strives to raise public awareness, scholarship, and activism on the overlapping issues that define Ellsberg’s life and legacy. In 2022-23, the initiative is co-sponsoring with the Department of History a series of programs, “Confronting Empire,” and holding workshops for high school teachers. In the future, if sufficient funding can be raised, it aims to expand its reach by offering fellowships for graduate students and postdocs to conduct research in the archives, and host scholarly conferences, leading to publications. Get involved and support the Ellsberg Initiative. According to Ellsberg Archivist Jeremy Smith ‘94, the Ellsberg Papers are available to anyone who is interested, whether affiliated with UMass or not. A small selection of documents has been digitized and is available online; the full collection can be accessed by contacting SCUA and visiting the Du Bois Library. Smith explained the unique value of this archive: “There are collections of activists and collections of people in government, but there are few, if any, that explore this Cold War time period from someone who held both roles. It’s a really unique insider-outsider perspective.” Learn below about some of the research enabled by the Ellsberg Papers. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.umass.edu/gateway/article/lessons-whistleblower Published and (C) by Common Dreams Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/commondreams/