"the times" exposÉ was based on documents secretly photocopied by dan ellsberg and anthony russo whileked as pentagon consultants at the rand corporation. ellsberg have been inspired to leak the documents for antiwar protesters. shortly before "the times" first reported on the pentagon papers come he took part in an antiwar protest in washington, d.c., 52 years ago today on may day 1971 as part of it affinity group with him's chomsky and howard zinn. -- noam chomsky and howard zinn. it would help end the war in vietnam and lead to a major victory for press freedom. the nixon administration would go on to take extraordinary measures to silence and punish ellsberg, including breaking into his psychiatrist's office. but the government's misconduct led to charges against him being dismissed. ellsberg has remained a leading critic of u.s. militarism and u.s. nuclear weapons policy, as well as a prominent advocate for other whistleblowers. i spoke to him from his home in thursday berkeley, california. dan, it is wonderful to have you with us. i am so appreciative that you are letting as into

[applause] amy: thank you, dan ellsberg.turn to noam chomsky, attorney suchitra vijayan is -- formerly worked for the united nations war crimes tribunals in yugoslavia and rwanda. she is founder now of the polis project, a new york-based research and journalism organization supporting civil resistance around the world. [applause] suchitra: the persecution of julian assange is not just about first amendment. it's not just about the freedom of press. it goes to the heart of the crisis of citizenship, the rapid erosion of civil liberties in the hand of deeply authoritarian democracies in the west. we need to name the beast. we have to start calling western liberal democracies what they are. they are deeply authoritarian, totalitarian, with deep lines of fascist ideologies that get implemented not today, but for many, many years. criminalizing dissent, persecuting dissidents, political trials, imprisoning journalists in high-security prisons and treating them as terrorists are not new. these are part of the long-established stra

were they while some didn't tell me at the time they described this and there was a book that dan ellsberg wrote was someone else called what it called papers on the war maybe. no, it was. oh, that's just something about irony of the i forget. anyway, it i think the central idea was that when you started out with these very small wars and then in the case of vietnam and everybody thought, you know, it could it could be kept at that small distance and it and it didn't because the vietnamese were too good. and so more were going in. and so everybody well, why doesn't someone stop at some some point or another and and the the cynical but i think real answer was that was that that each president would put off defeat until the next and. that really sort of horrified me. and, you know, i have to have to worry about presidents and war ever since. does it matter who they are? yeah. thank you. so fred, this is an unfair question, but i bet you've been asked it 100 times. you're on jfk. the next volume of your biography and i've certainly been asked many times what my reflection are as to what would