American Daniel Ellsberg, best known for his 1971 disclosure of the Vietnam War planning documents known as the Pentagon Papers, died Friday at the age of 92.
Ellsberg died of pancreatic cancer, which he was diagnosed with on February 17, his children and wife said in a statement, noting that he “did not suffer and was surrounded by his family.”
In March, Ellsberg said he had terminal cancer and had “three to six months” left.
Significantly, Ellsberg, born in 1931, helped change the way the American public viewed the Vietnam conflict.
Ellsberg was an analyst at the U.S. State Department and the Pentagon-affiliated Rand Corporation, and rose to fame in the early 1970s after leaking 7,000 classified documents known as the “Pentagon Papers” that revealed that several U.S. governments had lied to Americans about the Vietnam War.
Source: AFP.