Gravel Congratulates Ellsberg on Swedish Award

October 3, 2006, Washington, D.C. – Former United States Senator and Presidential candidate Mike Gravel congratulated Daniel Ellsberg on the announcement that he is a recipient of the 2006 Right Livelihood Award. Established in 1980, the Right Livelihood Award has come to be known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize” and are presented annually in the Swedish Parliament.

Senator Gravel said, “The American people and, indeed, the international community are in Daniel Ellsberg’s debt for his principled and courageous actions in blowing the whistle on the galactic lies and deceptions that characterized the American government’s public pronouncements on the Vietnam War.” The Senator continued, “Mr. Ellsberg not only helped to bring an end to the Vietnam War by arranging for the publication of the Pentagon Papers, but made it possible for others to leak information that would call national administrations to account when they try to hide their duplicitousness under the guise of national security and ‘Top Secret’ classifications just as the current administration has done now for five years.”

Senator Gravel arranged to receive the Pentagon Papers from Ben Bagdikian, an editor of the Washington Post who had been leaking part of the Papers from Daniel Ellsberg when the Justice Department moved to block further publication. The Senator read the Papers into the Senate record arguing he had the authority to do so as a Senator communicating with his constituents. He then facilitated their publication as The Senator Gravel Edition, The Pentagon Papers, Beacon Press, 1971. When the Nixon Administration went after the Senator and Beacon Press, Mike Gravel fought all the way to the Supreme Court in, Gravel v. U.S., resulting in a landmark Supreme Court decision (No. 71-1017-1026) relative to the Speech and Debate Clause (Article 1, Section 6) of the United States Constitution.