As the Daniel Ellsberg Archivist, Jeremy Smith ’94 is processing, rehousing, and creating intellectual order for the collection to improve access for researchers. “I am creating an overview of the collection, then I will transfer the material into archival folders and boxes for long-term preservation,” says Smith. “Along the way, I will be identifying items for potential digitization in the future.” Smith connects regularly with Dan, and his wife, Patricia, who are actively involved in making the materials accessible, and representative of Dan’s life and work, including work he is still producing. We asked Jeremy to tell us about a few objects he’s found so far in his work. “I chose three objects that I came across in my initial work with the collection that were interesting to me for various reasons. I could have grabbed any random box and found something fascinating, but I had to narrow it down to something.”
This is a great visual representation of how the Ellsberg story got turned on it’s head. What started as a high level Government official leaking secrets ended up with Ellsberg’s charges being dismissed and one of the operator’s behind the effort to discredit him being indicted and sent to prison!
Ellsberg received many supportive letters from a cross section of people from around the country for releasing the Pentagon Papers, (as well as some vitriolic hate mail). This is an example of the former and comes from the owner of an upstate NY chain of big box stores called Lloyd’s. It was a regional equivalent to Caldor’s, Bradlee’s, Ames, and K-Mart. I chose this because it comes from an unlikely source. Ed Lloyd does not appear to be a typical “peacenik” and shows how Ellsberg’s action touched many corners of the country outside of traditional anti-war circles.
These appear to be something Dan created, perhaps after his trial in 1973, following the release of the Pentagon Papers, that tracks the activities of the White House and the “Plumbers” in their efforts to stop leaks and gather dirt on perceived enemies. They are interesting because they shows the first glimmers of Dan understanding the full scope of the Nixon White House’s “dirty tricks” campaign. This is all common knowledge now, but when these were created, new revelations were coming out every day. Dan seems to be trying to get a handle on the timeline of events with these cards.
Watch the videos:
The Daniel Ellsberg Collection “Contents of the Archive”
The Daniel Ellsberg Collection “Blame it on the CIA”
Daniel Ellsberg shares select documents from his vast archive at UMass. In this two-and-a-half-minute clip, Ellsberg finds copies of photographs taken by Richard Nixon’s infamous “plumbers,” Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy, as they plot their illegal break-in at Ellsberg’s psychoanalyst’s office.