daniel ellsberg was the most dangerous man in america and he had to be stopped. >> well, daniel ellsbergwe welcome you to the program. let's just start at the top because one of the things that -- i looked at the documentary and was impressed by was the number of presidents who you said deceived the american public about the reasons for the war in vietnam. how many presidents are you -- >> i was talking about five presidents. there were four covered in the pentagon papers, which ended in 1968. the reason i copied them and gave them to the senate and then to the press is that i knew that a fifth one, richard nixon, was following in their footsteps. he was making secret threats to expand the war, possibly with nuclear weapons. and certainly in the air, even as he took some troops out. and i felt that the work could go on indefinitely in that way and i wanted people to understand the history that had preceded that. and maybe make them skeptical of what they were hearing from this fifth president. >> belva: i'd like you to talk a little bit about, since people have yet to see the documentary

daniel ellsberg wanted to be there too that's good that's and that's a feeling of camaraderie with peoplewho are truth tellers you know one of the one of the things here is the way the u.s. and the pentagon are playing things they are they are killing the messenger ok the defaming julian song wish and they are calling for prosecution when they should be thanking him for exposing these lies for exposing these abuses one of the one of the main commentators on one of our main channels diane sawyer was was interviewing martha raddatz one of the correspondents from the from the pentagon and martha said you know this is terrible that all kinds of torture going on the u.s. doesn't do anything about it there were fifteen thousand more civilian casualties the u.s. government said that they never counted them but they have been and there are people shooting civilians from helicopters because you can't surrender to a helicopter and diane sawyer says well i know there's a great deal of outrage and i'm thinking outrage that's terrific though i still have it you do what about the future of iraq let's b

daniel ellsberg, don't go away. [ woman ] alright, so this tylenol 8 hour lasts 8 hours.ut aleve can last 12 hours. and aleve was proven to work better on pain than tylenol 8 hour. so why am i still thinking about this? how are you? good, how are you? [ male announcer ] aleve. proven better on pain. >> larry: i'm joined now by daniel ellsberg, the former pentagon analyst who leaked the secret history of the vietnam war. you said you've been waiting 40 years for somebody to disclose information son a scale that might actually make a difference. what does this wikileaks mean to you, daniel? >> it's a different level of decision making. it's the field level. so it does reveal war crimes in the way the pentagon paper not, they revealed, it was 7,000 pages, which was as much as i could reveal with the technology then of xerox. i certainly couldn't handle 400,000 documents that they can now in the digital age. what they did reveal was deception of the american public of the kind that lied us into the iraq war from the beginning. now, that kind of deception, that kind of decisio

burke, author of the pentagon papers -- daniel ellsberg. the speakers are pleased to enteany and all questions concerning the release of the documents. i would like to open questions by asking daniel ellsberg, what is your reaction to thisind of release of material? it is quite different than what you did yourself. >> it is different and the same in many ways. the war in afghanistan has more fundamental similarities than it has differences. i would just say that a couple of us here came over the ocean last not for the opportunity to stand with gillian assand and the rest of you here in a circumstance that i have been waiting to see for 40 years. that number is not drawn out of their. judie aronson just come directed a film called "the most dangerous man in america." it seems inevitable the new title will be "the most dangerous man in the world." if one country is pursuing for prosecution that person, who regard him as dangers of over three continents, the threat being made by the pentagon, if you read in the last few days of warning newsmen

burke, author of the pentagon papers -- daniel ellsberg. the speakers are pleased to enter any and all questions concerning the release of the documents. i would like to open questions by asking daniel ellsberg, what is your reaction to this kind of release of material? it is quite different than what you did yourself. >> it is different and the same in many ways. the war in afghanistan has more fundamental similarities than it has differences. i would just say that a couple of us here came over the ocean last not for the opportunity to stand with gillian assand and the rest of you here in a circumstance that i have been waiting to see for 40 years. that number is not drawn out of the air. judie aronson just come directed a film called "the most dangerous man in america." it seems inevitable the new title will be "the most dangerous man in the world." if one country is pursuing for prosecution that person, who regard him as dangers of over three continents, the threat being made by the pentagon, if you read in the last few days of warning n

years for someone to disclose information on a scale that might really make a difference, said daniel ellsbergguest: with all due respect to him, i think that is a false analogy. these are not the pentagon papers. i frankly don't think it will change in any fundamental way american policy in iraq, nor did they change american policy in afghanistan. i do think they raise some important questions about what our policy should be going forward, and the issues the american government needs to attend to. host: who is julian assange? guest: i don't know because i have never met the man. but my colleague john burns in london did a long story about him today, and interviewed him at length. he is an australian, the paramount leader of wikileaks. he seems to be controversial within his own organization. he has previously been highly critical of the american government. host: today based on what john burns writes "on the run" try to keep out of the public eye? guest: he seems to have convinced himself that he is in peril and needs to be on the run. i don't know the actual situation. host: our next caller