ELLSBERG

To the Editors of The Crimson:

Daniel Ellsberg's continual self-righteous blathering (Crimson, March 12) is nauseating.

He speaks of America's participation in Vietnam as a "nine-year project of torture and terror," and urges Americans to resist obedience to "the dangerous lethal authorities of this system."

But he neglects to mention that it was he who was one of the lethal architects of that nine-year project. Remember those pictures of the gung-ho civilian Ellsberg in 'Nam, wearing fatigues and toting his M-16?

And now it is he who is out on the hustings collecting fame and fortune for renouncing his crimes, while thousands who did resist, like myself, continue to pay the emotional and financial price of Ellsberg's folly, to say nothing of the maimed and the dead.

His is a phoniness nakedly obvious to the average citizen, even though misguided intellectuals, reformers and liberal members of the press continue to clothe him with sanctity.

If Daniel Ellsberg truly wishes to repent for his sins, and to convince us of his repentance, than let him donate his wordly goods to an appropriate charitable organization, shave his head, and take a nine-year vow of silence. Steve Nelson   Harvard Law '65