Tony Russo, forgotten American hero

 Read the Mother Jones story, linked above, for his full history.

A real American hero.

In 1970, I was in LA to buy some pot to bring back to Stony Brook, where I was doing graduate work. I met a friend of mine in LA, Ralph, who was working for a left wing think tank in DC. Ralph brought me to RAND to meet Tony. In the middle of this think tank that did super secret war work was this wild hippie with a Viet Cong flag on the wall. As we were leaving together, he asked me to carry a carton of papers, which we put in the trunk of his car. We drove to a small advertising agency in Santa Monica, where I helped make copies for Ralph — who later co-authored a book, Washington Plans An Aggressive War. There was a place at the top of every page where something had been cut out — the Top Secret designation, obviously. As I was copying, I remember thinking “they hanged people for this at Nuremberg.” Then nothing happened for a long time. Then the Pentagon Papers broke, Ellsberg and Russo were put on trial, and I got very worried. Ralph called to let me know that they were trying to indict him in Boston. His lawyer was Telford Taylor, chief prosecutor at Nuremberg. Ellsberg and Russo defended themselves on first amendment grounds and were acquitted (Tony chased General Alexander Haig down the hall of the courthouse, calling him a “genocidal warrior.”) Taylor defended Ralph on fourth amendment grounds and the government dropped the case because, as we later learned, the government didn’t want it to come out in discovery that the  Plumbers had burglarized Ellsberg’s office. Around 1974 or 75, Russo moved to San Francisco and we started hanging out a lot. Really brilliant, funny, passionate guy. He moved and we lost touch and I was sad when he died.