Ellsberg, a former Pentagon aide working at California defense think tank the Rand Corp., entered the history books in June 1971 when he leaked the so-called Pentagon Papers, a highly classified study of how the United States became militarily engaged in the ever-escalating war in Vietnam. "Wild Man" is being published on the 30th anniversary of Ellsberg's defiant act, an act that he hoped would end a war. Instead it ended a presidency.

While our nation has no "official secrets act" as England does, President Richard Nixon's national security advisor, Henry Kissinger, got the president so pumped up with determination to nail Ellsberg that the government concocted a criminal case and prosecuted him. With no espionage laws to cover the situation, the heart of the prosecution was charges of theft. However, given the fact that Ellsberg had returned the documents after copying them, even theft was dubious.

Yet Nixon wanted to destroy Ellsberg any way he could, so he employed his infamous "Plumbers Unit," which hoped to forever discredit this leaker by stealing possible negative information about him from his psychiatrist and then smearing him with it publicly. No American has been subjected to greater abuse by a president of the United States than Dan Ellsberg, and when this fact became known, the case against him was thrown out of court. Rather than destroying the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers, the historical record shows that Nixon's criminal actions against Ellsberg led to his own downfall.

I met Ellsberg in 1975, after all these events had played out, when he came to my home with a mutual friend. Thus began a conversation with him that has been going on, with gaps of a few years here and there, for the last quarter of a century. He was interested in what I knew about Nixon's pursuit of him, and curious to learn what had happened to my life after I testified about Nixon's nefarious activities. I was interested in why Ellsberg had leaked the papers, and what effects his decision had on him and his life. Each of us, for his own reasons, had made decisions that profoundly affected the Nixon presidency.

Few people appreciate the impact of Ellsberg's action on the Nixon White House, how it was a catalyst for the cluster of illegal activity later known as Watergate, the most serious presidential scandal in our history. It was this fact that prompted me to collaborate with Eric Hamburg, one of the producers of Oliver Stone's film "Nixon," in writing and producing a television movie titled "The Pentagon Papers."

After completing the screenplay, I sent a copy to Dan. He did not want to become involved in the project because he was working on his autobiography. He wanted to tell his story, his way. That was understandable, but his explanation surprised me.

At a lunch only a few years earlier with Dan and his wife Patricia, I had encouraged him to write his autobiography. He resisted, and so did Pat, who said she could not bear the idea of having to relive all those old memories. I could appreciate that. Dan said he would write an autobiography only if he was unhappy with the way a fellow who was working on a biography wrote about him.

That book has been written. Ellsberg is not going to be very happy. After reading Wells' work, I hope that Ellsberg is working seriously on his autobiography. He should not bother to read the Wells book; it will only make him angry.

Maya Angelou reads from "The Heart of a Woman"