RIP Daniel Ellsberg

From the NPR obit:

Ellsberg never ran for office and only occasionally appeared on TV. But he altered the course of U.S. history in a way few private citizens ever have.

From a piece that Ellsberg wrote in 2014, recollecting a particularly odd moment during his trial:

[W]hen I finally heard my lawyer ask the prearranged question in direct examination – Why did you copy the Pentagon Papers? – I was silenced before I could begin to answer. The government prosecutor objected – irrelevant – and the judge sustained. My lawyer, exasperated, said he “had never heard of a case where a defendant was not permitted to tell the jury why he did what he did.” The judge responded: well, you're hearing one now.

From The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers: “We were the wrong side”