Next Tuesday, October 5, at 9:00 p.m., many public television stations will broadcast The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. It is a 90-minute documentary about Daniel Ellsberg’s life, his education and rise in the world of a secret government-funded think-tank, and the thinking that brought him to release the classified Pentagon Papers. I had the opportunity to see this film earlier this year. It is a dramatic story of conscience versus government power, and I recommend it. Here is a link to the trailer. Here is a link to a live chat with Daniel Ellsberg and the filmmakers on October 6 at 2:00 pm eastern. Below is the description of the film by the producers at PBS’ Point-of-View:
In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg, a leading Vietnam War strategist, concludes that America’s role in the war is based on decades of lies. He leaks 7,000 pages of top-secret documents to The New York Times, a daring act of conscience that leads directly to Watergate, President Nixon’s resignation and the end of the Vietnam War. Ellsberg and a who’s-who of Vietnam-era movers and shakers give a riveting account of those world-changing events in POV’s The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers by award-winning filmmakers Judith Ehrlich (The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight It) and Rick Goldsmith (Tell the Truth and Run: George Seldes and the American Press). A co-production of ITVS in association with American Documentary/POV.
Daniel Ellsberg and Filmmakers Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith