Daniel Ellsberg ACLU Fundraiser 1973

Streisand / LIVE 

Daniel Ellsberg ACLU Fundraiser (1973)

Jennings Lang’s Home
Beverly Hills, Calif.

April 7, 1973
Daniel Ellsberg poses with Barbra Streisand in 1973.
On Saturday, April 7, 1973, Barbra Streisand contributed her talents to an important political cause.

Under a tent at Universal Pictures exec Jennings and Monica Lang's home, Streisand sang at a party to raise money for the legal defense fund of Daniel Ellsberg. It also happened to be Ellsberg's 42nd birthday that evening.

Ellsberg created a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of the U.S. government decision-making for the Vietnam War. Ellsberg released the papers to the New York Times and other newspapers in America. In 1973, Ellsberg was charged with conspiracy and espionage, so this event was to raise money for his legal defense. About 200 people attended, at $250 per couple.

Speakers that evening were journalist David Halberstam, Stanley Sheinbaum (chairman of the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California), and Daniel Ellsberg.

Barbra, according to columnist Joyce Haber, wore "a beige silk halterneck jersey gown, her hair pied up and caught with a diamond clip."

Streisand joked to the audience, "I feel as though I'm at the Concord, except they have knockers up there.”

Streisand's part of the evening was taking requests for songs over the telephone and from the audience for specific amounts. For instance, “People” netted $1,000. Barbra was accompanied on piano by Marvin Hamlisch.

The audience was filled with celebrities, including Joni Mitchell, David Geffen, Ringo Starr, John Lennon and George Harrison, Yoko Ono, and agent Freddie Fields. Also Peter Bogdanovich, Diahann Carroll, Hugh Hefner, Burt Lancaster, and Sally Kellerman. The event raised $50,000 for Ellsberg's defense.

Barbra, sometimes looking over Hamlisch's shoulder to read the lyrics off the lead sheets, sang many wonderful songs.
John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and Ringo Star talk to Streisand at the event.
Newspaper headline: Streisand Sings to Aid Ellsberg
Daniel Ellsberg, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Barbra Streisand, and Ringo Star together at a fundraiser for Ellsberg, 1973.
Here is a list of some of the songs Barbra sang that evening:
  • People (sung to "David" on the telephone, for his barmitzvah)
  • You're The Top ($1000 by director Peter Bogdanovich, who joked, “—and get it right this time.”)
  • In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning
  • Long Ago & Far Away
  • Time After Time
  • I'll Get By (Dedicated to Ellsberg, $1000 by Lang)
  • Someone To Watch Over Me (sung to "Margie" on the telephone)
  • I Don't Know Where I Stand (Requested in the audience by David Geffen. When Barbra hears Joni Mitchell is in the audience she says, "I love your music and I also love the way you sing...")
  • What Are You Doing The Rest of Your Life? ("Dedicated to my dear friends, the Bergmans, who wrote it...")
  • Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star (on the phone for Carl Reiner for $1,000)
  • A Little Help From My Friends (this must have been fun, with most of The Beatles in the audience!)
Also reportedly sung: “My Melancholy Baby,” and “The Very Thought of You.” Barbra also sang a "rain medley" [Soon its Gonna Rain/Come Rain or Come Shine/Singin' in the Rain]. You can hear Barbra on a bootleg recording of the evening tell the audience "we will do our rain medley, our show business rain medley..."

Columbia Records recorded this evening for a potential album, but never released it (perhaps too political ?) Barbra, supported by what sounds like a small combo with Hamlisch on the piano, is charming and relaxed and sounds beautiful. She also sang a few songs that she has never released or covered before.  This would be an amazing “from the vaults” CD for the fans to hear sometime, although it would have to be presented in its historical context (why are people calling?  Why are they donating money for songs? Who is Daniel Ellsberg and why does he need money raised?).

In 2013, Daniel Ellsberg sat down with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! for an interview which touched on this concert, briefly:


AMY GOODMAN: And you talked about how Barbra Streisand may well have saved America.


DANIEL ELLSBERG:  Well, Barbra Streisand offered to do a fundraiser for us in the last month of our trial, at a time when we had no money left. And we were practically—


AMY GOODMAN:  You were being charged with treason for releasing the Pentagon Papers.


DANIEL ELLSBERG:  —being charged with 115 years, possibly life sentence—pretty much a life sentence [...] And she—we were really prepared to stop calling witnesses and to basically go into final argument, just essentially for economic reasons.


AMY GOODMAN:  Because you had run out of money.


DANIEL ELLSBERG:  We had run out of money [...] And she offered a fundraiser, which raised a lot of money for that time, by auctioning off songs, actually, for The Beatles, appeared for. Had she not done that, and had the trial ended [...] So that initiative of people giving support, to a man that the administration was trying to make a pariah, just as they are making that effort with Julian Assange and Bradley Manning right now, and the willingness of American citizens to stand up and say, "We stand with him," [...] without that demonstration, you have a kind of isolation that makes it very difficult for anyone else to do anything—anything that possibly supports the constitutional principles here.


[Pictured: Ringo Starr, host Jennings Lang, Georgia State Rep. Julian Bond, Streisand, and Ellsberg]
End / Ellsberg ACLU Benefit
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