Don Palabraz

Forty years ago, Dr. Daniel Ellsberg contemplated exposing top secret government documents on the Vietnam War. The RAND corporation analyst and war planner felt that the seven-thousand pages popularly known now as the ‘Pentagon Papers,” would bring to light the true history of the unfolding conflict and turn public opinion against it. The dramatic story of his decision to ultimately leak the comprehensive and top-secret McNamara reports on the Vietnam War to the press is the subject of a new documentary by filmmakers Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith. “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers,” retells the history that had Ellsberg facing the prospect of spending the rest of his life behind bars.

Taking its name from Nixon Administration Defense Secretary Henry Kissinger’s description of the whistleblower, the film is largely narrated by Ellsberg himself in his own words. “The Most Dangerous Man in America,” also features interviews with Ellsberg wife, people’s historian Howard Zinn, indicted “co-conspirator” Tony Russo and others. Reuters described the film as both a “straightforward history lesson” and a “top-notch thriller.”

Archival audio from White House discussions between Nixon and Kissinger drive home the morality of Ellsberg’s motivation to act. In them, the two cavalierly discuss massive civilian deaths in Vietnam with Tricky Dick going so far as to prod Kissinger to lighten up on the subject of using a nuclear weapon! Pure evil! And Ellsberg refused to be banal in the face of it.

Check fandango.com to see if this documentary is playing at a theater near you!