Daniel Ellsberg (born 1931) was a defense analyst for the Rand Corporation, a U.S. government official, and then became an anti-war activist during the Vietnam era; it was Ellsberg who leaked a top-secret Defense Department study that came to be known as the Pentagon Papers. One indirect repercussion from this act was a decline in public support for the war, and eventual discrediting of the administration of President Richard M. Nixon.

Daniel Ellsberg was born in Chicago on April 7, 1931. His father, a structural engineer, moved the family several years later to Detroit. The young Ellsberg attended Barber Elementary School in Detroit and subsequently received a scholarship to Cranbook, an exclusive preparatory school located in the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills. After compiling a superb academic record there, as well as captaining the basketball team, he won a scholarship to Harvard University. Once again, Ellsberg's academic performance was outstanding...