The U.S. government analyst who became one of the most famous whistleblowers in history when he leaked the Pentagon Papers has died, according to news reports.
The death of Daniel Ellsberg, 92, was confirmed by his family on Friday, The Guardian reported.
In March, Ellsberg announced that he had inoperable pancreatic cancer and was given three to six months to live. He decided not to undergo chemotherapy and instead went into hospice care.
"I am not in any physical pain,” Ellsberg wrote, adding: “My cardiologist has given me license to abandon my salt-free diet of the last six years. This has improved my life dramatically: the pleasure of eating my favorite foods!”
"The Pentagon Papers covered US policy in Vietnam between 1945 and 1967 and showed that successive administrations were aware the US could not win," The Guardian's report stated. "By the end of the war in 1975, more than 58,000 Americans were dead and 304,000 were wounded. Nearly 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers were killed, as were around 1 million North Vietnamese soldiers and Viet Cong guerillas and more than 2 million civilians in North and South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia."