PENTAGON PAPERS

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32640, 23 June 1971, Page 8

PENTAGON PAPERS

Man "glad it’s out”

(N Z P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) NEW YORK. June 21.

The man said to have leaked the secret Pentagon documents to the “New York Times” says that he is glad the papers have become public.

Mr Daniel Ellsberg, in an interview with "Newsweek” magazine before he disappeared. said that he was "glad it’s out” and "flattered to be suspected of having leaked it.”

Mr Ellsberg, a former aide to the departments of State and Defence, now with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was named as the source by Sidney Zion, a former “New York Times” reporter.

He disappeared the day Zion named him on a New York radio programme. He called the documents “a good starting point for real understanding of the war, the U.S. equivalent of the Nuremberg war crimes documents.”

According to the report, he added: “The documents show that presidential assistants and other officials had virtually unlimited licence to lie to the public. "Now, those responsible for the escalation of the war will be held to account for the papers they signed.” "Newsweek'’ reported that Mr Ellsberg tried to get officials in Washington to recognise the importance of the i eport.

, Last September, hes aid he visited the presidential advisoi. Dr Henry Kissinger. "1 asked him if he had a copy of the McNamara study in the White House. ‘Yes,’ he 'said. ’Did you read it/ I asked. ‘No,’ Mr Kissinger said.

" ‘Anybody on your staff work it over?’ Again, Kissinger said ‘no’.”