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(More customer reviews)Dan Ellsberg, the reader probably knows, is the analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers to the press during the early 1970s. The Vietnam war had been raging, and all of a sudden the mainstream press had access to secret documents that showed, first, that plans had been in place for invasion of Indochina from the time Truman was in office, and that from Truman on, presidents had been lying to us up to and including the alleged attack of two US ships on the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964 which caused the real explosion of that war.
What many people don't know about Dr. Ellsberg is that he was an officer in the Marine Corps before he went into the academic world, then became a Rand Corp. analyst.
The most interesting element of the film is the process of watching Ellsberg change. He even examined a little of what led him into the Marines, wondering, he thought, whether he could make it. He ended up being the only 1st lieutenant overseeing 211 other Marines in a rifle company. While there, he still seemed to believe in "the system."
Early in the film, it seemed like it may go into a pscho-babble direction, i.e., diagnosing why he did what he did, But that wasn't, fortunately, taken too far. But while working for the system--being part of that system that perpetuated the war-- his conscience began to bother him. He talked with others, notably Tony Russo, who encouraged him to follow his conscience.
The film went from a silhouetted "actor" portraying Ellsberg on the phone, or in discussions with others, to an occasional animation. But the animation wasn't frivolous. Some of it was, for example, of his kids and he xeroxing the top secret papers, the police coming to the door on an unrelated incident, and Ellsberg almost embarassingly describing how the police had no idea what was going on right under their noses.
Throughout the film, there were graphics of a reel-to-reel tape player accompanied by the "surtitles" of what President Nixon was saying, to Henry Kissinger, to Al Haig, and to others, the profanity for which Nixon was notorious, and how he was going to get Ellsberg, etc. etc.
Another interesting perspective of Ellsberg on the press's reaction to what his use of tangible figures to describe the war: he'd tell reporters how much bomb tonnage was dropped in Vietnam, and compared it to Hiroshima. (At the very beginning of the film, someone, I don't recall who, stated something about the most overbombed country in history or something to that effect; the amount of bombing we did over that little country was beyond anything that had been done before, even on developed countries!) But the press didn't seem to make note of those figures, something measurable by which to evaluate the damage we were inflicting on Vietnam despite how often Ellsberg cited them.
There may have been a little more adoration of Ellsberg than was appropriate. But my saying that is as much speculation, and I guess some of my own skepticism coming out. For instance, Ellsberg had been anxious to get the material published in the NY Times, and pressed them to release it. Then the FBI was on the prowl for him. But he wanted more and more elements of the press to get it. The film made it look like it was his strategy, or tenacity, that caused seventeen publications, including the Philadelphia Inquirer, the LA Times and others, to release more of the papers. My skepticism leads me to think there was as much chance to that many publications getting access to the information, but, again, perhaps I'm speculating.
When the FBI finally caught up with Ellsberg and Russo, they were on trial for long terms, in Ellsberg's case, for up to 115 years. But during the trial, it turned out that the government had been bugging Ellsberg for years before the Pentagon Papers were even an issue. The government had bungled the case so badly that a mistrial was called, and Nixon responded with his usual comments.
What intrigued me most about the film is the connections that it made between the release of the Pentagon Papers, the Watergate incident, and the eventual downfall (resignation) of Nixon. At least according to the film, they were closely related with the Papers release having catalyzed the whole process.
Shelving my skepticism for now, until it's challenged, I'll buy that contention of the film. Again, it's not a connection I'd made before but it sure seems logical after seeing this film which should be shown to every class in high school or college dedicated to the study of the Vietnam conflict.
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2010 Oscar Nominee for Best Documentary Co-winner of 2009 Freedom of Expression Award from the National Board of Review (and one of their Five Best Documentaries of the Year), Winner of the Special Jury Award at IDFA, and now nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary, The Most Dangerous Man in America tells the story of Daniel Ellsberg, a high-level Pentagon official and Vietnam War strategist, who in 1971 concluded that the war is based on decades of lies and leaks 7,000 pages of top secret documents to The New York Times, making headlines around the world. A riveting story of how this one man's profound change of heart created a landmark struggle involving America's newspapers, its president and Supreme Court. With Daniel Ellsberg, Patricia Ellsberg, Tony Russo, Howard Zinn, Hedrick Smith, John Dean, and, from the secret White House tapes, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, who called Ellsberg "the most dangerous man in America."
