Truth and Consequences. Reflections on Catastrophe, Civil Resistance, and Hope

The late activist and Pentagon Paper leaker Ellsberg (The Doomsday Machine), who died in 2023, muses in this roving collection on what motivates bureaucrats to comply with or resist corrupt directives. The book opens with essays on his fraught relationship with his mother, Adele (“We were lovers,” he writes, but “not physically”), who insisted that he train as a pianist. After she died in a car accident when his father, Harry, fell asleep at the wheel, the 15-year-old Ellsberg felt relieved at not having to practice anymore, leading to guilt and neurosis. In later passages drawn from his notebooks, he reflects on his decision to leak the Pentagon Papers, which contradicted official optimism about the Vietnam War, as well as the apparent lack of conscience of the national-security functionaries who hid the truth about the conflict at the president’s behest. Here, Ellsberg draws connections between Vietnam and his boyhood trauma, likening Adele, who demanded that the sleep-deprived Harry keep driving, to a domineering president, and Harry to a passive RAND flunky who follows dangerous directives. Other selections cover Ellsberg’s later activism, including on climate change. Ellsberg’s ruminations map an emotional, at times almost spiritual journey from Cold War liberalism to New Left progressivism and today’s lefty politics. It makes for a fascinating window into the inner life of a whistleblower and the psychological turmoil behind a sweeping societal shift. (Mar.)