Letter from Pat Grunnet to Daniel Ellsberg, September 3, 1972

This is a letter of support from a Peoples Temple congregation member to Daniel Ellsberg while he was awaiting trial for copying the Pentagon Papers. I chose this document because it brings together two famous events from the 1970s in an unexpected way and also shows that, in the years leading up to the infamous 1978 mass murder of over 900 people in Jonestown, Guyana, Daniel Ellsberg was on the radar of the Peoples Temple church and the progressive Bay area alternative scene. In fact, Daniel Ellsberg later spoke at the organization’s church in San Francisco in October 1978, a few short weeks before the tragedy in Jonestown.

Helen Kyirakoudes