A Person of Hope

“Is your father a person of faith?” I have been asked that question several times since my father, Daniel Ellsberg, announced in February that he was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. I think of the answer he himself provided many years ago: “No, but I am a person of hope.”

My dad, a former defense analyst, is of course best remembered for copying a 7,000-page top-secret history of the Vietnam War, later known as the Pentagon Papers, and providing it to the press and public in 1971. For this action he was charged with 12 felony counts under the espionage act, facing 115 years in prison. At his arraignment, a reporter asked him, “Are you concerned about going to jail?” He replied, “Wouldn’t you go to jail if it would help end this war?”

It is characteristic of many people who perform extraordinary actions to believe that what they did is what “anyone would do.” But that does not make it less extraordinary. His memoir, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers, could well be read as a conversion story, from his work as a nuclear war planner to his time in the Pentagon working full-time on “the problem” of Vietnam, then two years in Vietnam itself, where the sufferings of the Vietnamese people “became as real to me as my own hands.” This experience shifted his perception of the war from a “problem to be solved” to a “mistake to be ended.” But it was in his later work on the Pentagon Papers project itself and learning of the secret origins and history of the war that he came to see it as a “crime to be resisted.” By this time he had met young draft resisters, inspired by Gandhian nonviolence, who were going to prison in opposition to the war. It inspired him to ask, “What could I do to end the war if I were willing to go to jail?”

Where do faith and hope come into this? My father does not believe in “God.” I put that word in quotes because, as I once told him, “I do not believe in the God you don’t believe in.” We had many conversations or debates about religion over the years. He never could comprehend my conversion to Catholicism—though as he once told me, “Because of my respect for you, I have to think there is more to it than I can understand.” And yet over the many decades of his tireless protests against nuclear war, he was glad to welcome close allies among Catholics and other “people of faith.” And he appreciated my writing about saints and prophets, knowing well how much his own life had been affected by the power of living witness.

He is a “person of hope”—who believes that hope is not a feeling of optimism, but a way of engagement, a way of living that opened the way to transformation. You never know the possible consequences of your actions. His actions were in the spirit of a prophet, warning the nations that they were on the road to perdition, yet never despairing that conversion was possible and that we might choose life.

Dorothy Day often spoke of the need for “saint-revolutionaries,” among whom she included characters in novels by Ignacio Silone and Arthur Koestler—secular figures, who set an example of moral engagement and were prepared to sacrifice themselves for others. I think also of those honored by the “non-believer” Albert Camus, who, without the consolation of belief in an afterlife, still committed themselves to join with others in the struggle against the forces of death. In that struggle he welcomed the commitment of Christians who would avoid abstractions and confront “the blood-stained face history has taken on today”: a grouping of men and women “resolved to speak out clearly and pay up personally.”

My father spent the past fifty years struggling to warn the world of the perils of the nuclear “Doomsday Machine.” Approaching the end of his life, he wonders whether his actions had had any effect. Yet to his last breath, he continues to direct all his intentions toward the possibility of a great awakening or moral conversion. It would take a miracle, he acknowledged in his secular terms. It would require a wholesale commitment to “the others, those not of our immediate tribe, to future generations, to the earth, to our fellow creatures.” The fact that this was not only the moral choice but an imperative for our own survival underlined the urgency of this intention.  

“Is your father a person of faith?” I reflect on this question as Dad enters his final days.

“Yes. He is a person of hope.”

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Robert Ellsberg publisher of Orbis Books and the author of many books, most recently, Dearest Sister Wendy … A Surprising Story of Faith and Friendship (with Sister Wendy Beckett).

Comments

[Frank Fromherz]

Gracias hermano 🙏. Thank you for sharing.

[Thalia Doukas]

Thank you so much & yes, your father has made a difference to so many who have been inspired by his actions & his heroism. May we create a safer, saner future before long.

[Catherine Keller]

I just want to re-cite: "He is a “person of hope”—who believes that hope is not a feeling of optimism, but a way of engagement, a way of living that opened the way to transformation. You never know the possible consequences of your actions. His actions were in the spirit of a prophet, warning the nations that they were on the road to perdition, yet never despairing that conversion was possible and that we might choose life."

What a superb crystallization of your father's perspective. I am sure he knows himself profoundly fortunate to have a son who so "gets" it--and pursues his own distinctive path into that non-optimistic hope.

[James Finley]

I am touched by Robert's reflections about his father. Over the years I I have met met men and women who do not believe in God in whose presence I sense a sense depths of spiritual depth that transcends the the spiritual depths of deeply "religious people."

[Maurice Held]

Dear Robert,
Of course, after our encounter on the Dorothy Day ferry crossing, I am with you and your companion in prayer, grieving « this man of hope » which is quite difficult in our age and maybe as spiritually challenging as faith.
Thank you for sharing your last moments with your father, especially your walk together on the beach.
Prayerfully with you and family,
Maurice

[Judy Holmes]

"No greater love has anyone than they lay down their lives for another." Your dad personified this moral principle by his decisions, his actions, his words and his perseverance. I thank God for his efforts to save lives from the insanity of war. Thank you, Robert, for extending his legacy through your witness and publishing works furthering justice and peace.

[Tom Sampson]

Robert, I read your Blessed Among Us in Give Us This Day each morning. I had no idea Daniel is your father. My prayers are with both of you.