Word: ellsbergs
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...final theme is initiative. It is somehow fitting that only by committing what may prove to be a felony could Ellsberg help release the documented truth of an immoral, unjust, and illegally pursued war. For 26 years, America has supported an increasingly intense display of inhumanity. Only civil disobedience could reveal the facts of our involvement to the public, facts which, unsurprisingly, are still denied in much public reaction to the Pentagon Papers...
There is another motif running through the Ellsberg affair, the motif of the Harvard Man, of intelligence delivered in the service of power. Ellsberg stepped forward and removed himself from the past; while not absolving himself of guilt, he at least has attempted repentence. It is better that he should self-consciously but actively atone than atrophy amidst his own regrets...
...what about the men to whom Ellsberg gave service? What about the men who helped fashion the Vietman quagmire? What about the Kennedys, Bundy, and Kissinger, et al? Does their involvement in the war have something to indicate about Harvard...
...Harvard's apparent role in directing the war an innocent string of striking coincidences, or does Harvard actively prevent potential activists and resisters like Ellsberg from stepping out of the web of power? Does Harvard suppress confession? Does Harvard ignore sacrifice? Does Harvard repress initiative? What could resistance mean in the context of Harvard? Why does alienation, rather than activism, dominate the life of this university...
People at Harvard are unusually good targets for a campaign in support of passivity. Like Dr. Ellsberg, we have the most valuable interests to protect. Like Dr. Ellsberg, we have the most sins to confess. Like Dr. Ellsberg, we would have to take drastic initiative to break loose, even to preserve an academic integrity in an institution whose social attitudes often grow from nineteenth century intellectual seeds...