Tag: dan ellsberg

Latest read: The Vietnam War: An Intimate History

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date March 10, 2019

The Vietnam War: An Intimate History by Geoffrey Ward and Ken Burns have authored one of the finest efforts to address the war from multiple perspectives and is perfect for Gen X and Millennials. This compliments Burns’ highly acclaimed 2017 PBS series.
Many already recognize that Ken Burns is a gifted storyteller mixing media together to produce: The Civil War (1990), Baseball (1994), Jazz (2001), The War (2007), The National Parks: America’s Best Idea (2009), Prohibition (2011), and The Roosevelts (2014).

Prior to the PBS 10-part series, I knew Burns would deliver another great experience. For the book release, Ward and Burns do not disappoint. Their detailed stories and personal testimonials from soldiers and their families are deeply moving. Many young and old will more accurately understand a very tumultuous period in our nation’s history.

Burns’ access to newly released interviews and declassified materials from both sides show greater insights that inject confusion to long-held beliefs. This will lead many to question truths on all sides, from past government leaders to military generals.

Burns and Ward offer a number of key revelations:

Education Reading Vietnam War Watergate

Latest read: The Pentagon Papers secret history

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date May 21, 2018

The Pentagon Papers: The Secret History of the Vietnam War by Neil Sheehan and The New York Times is an amazing story. Just re-published in December 2017, Sheehan, was an established, respected reporter on Vietnam. This period was an extraordinary time of change in our country as President Nixon expanded the war in Vietnam.

Sheehan obtained a complete copy of the top secret Pentagon Papers from Daniel Ellsberg, a RAND consultant and contributor to the papers. The publishing of the Pentagon Papers would lead Nixon’s re-election committee, somewhat appropriately named CREEP to plan and execute the Watergate break-in. This action was a direct result of the Pentagon Papers leaking, and ultimately, Nixon’s resignation.

However the Papers, initiated by his Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara date back to 1945. The initial volumes reveal the American effort to save Vietnam was effectively lost before 1960.

The most striking reports of early failure in Vietnam and Indochina occurred prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and stretched through the 1954 Geneva Conference. This put to rest an notion Vietnam was a development of the Kennedy administration.

Tags dan ellsberg, dwight eisenhower, EW Kenworthy, fox butterfield, Hedrick Smith, indochina, john foster duller, Lyndon Johnson, neil sheehan, new york times, pentagon papers, robert mcnamara, Vietnam War

Education Watergate

Watergate’s Chuck Colson

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date April 22, 2012

Chuck Colson died Saturday. I think he will be remember more for his post Watergate actions than the Un-American acts he managed in Nixon’s White House. Regrettably today’s short attention span media will focus on the last years of his life rather than painfully share again with America the lessons of those in control of power in the beltway.

Chuck was a member of the Watergate Seven and will be forever tied to the illegal actions of breaking into the private offices of psychiatrist Dr. Lewis Fielding and stealing files relating to patient Dan Ellsberg who leaked the Pentagon Papers. We should not look past his role of authoring Nixon’s Enemies List and his role in the Vietnamization of the war in SouthEast Asia.

Tags chuck colson, committee to reelect the president, control, dan ellsberg, ehrlichman, hearts and minds, illegal actions, john ehrlichman, nixon, pentagon papers, scandal, vietnamization, watergate