But when Mr. Sheehan arrived in Cambridge intending to collect the documents, he recalled, Mr. Ellsberg had changed his mind. And he didn’t have a politician yet to protect him.”He was, Mr. Sheehan said, “totally conflicted.”Mr. Ellsberg was also taking serious risks, Mr. Sheehan said. “There’s no way The Times can protect this guy,” Mr. Sheehan remembered thinking. His ostensibly secret source had “left tracks on the ceiling, on the walls, everywhere,” he said. “Sooner or later, I was afraid he was going to run into a politician who’d go right to the Justice Department,” Mr. Sheehan said.

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Persons: Sheehan, Ellsberg, Mr, “, ”, ” Mr, who’d, Dan Ellsberg, ’ Organizations: Pentagon, The Times, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Times, Justice Department, The New York Times Locations: Cambridge, Vietnam, The