A review by jaclyn_youngblood
Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg

4.0

On the heels of most of the Ken Burns documentary, reading this book felt like learning with and hearing from all of these people and names who I recognized. Interesting for the sequencing alone. Further interesting to read this in the time of the Mueller investigation. I found Ellsberg's prose cogent, the plot (such as it was) compellingly shared, and (although of course biased because it is *his* memoir) his own reflections on his development (intellectual, moral, etc.) as a "character" very well laid out. I think I enjoyed most reading about his time in Vietnam (his approach to finding more reliable sources on the ground and actually driving around the country, though I'm sure it was even just a little tinged by bravado); but the coverage of his time in Cambridge and on the west coast as he's grappling with when and how and to whom to release the papers, for me, stole the show.