The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers (2009)

In 1971, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger labeled Daniel Ellsberg The Most Dangerous Man in America. President Richard Nixon said Ellsberg gave “aid and comfort to the enemy” and ordered his team to get “that son of a bitch” by any means necessary. What Ellsberg did forty years ago may be ignored or forgotten by modern Americans, but, as this Academy Award-nominated documentary illustrates, his actions had both immediate and historic repercussions that continue to resonate in government, press, and culture.

Daniel Ellsberg served as a U.S. Marine infantryman in the mid-1950s, and upon his discharge went to work for the RAND Corporation, a West Coast think tank with close and confidential ties to the Pentagon. Known for his logical thinking and analysis, Ellsberg found himself traveling with–and writing reports for–LBJ’s Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara by 1964. (See Errol Morris’s Oscar-winning documentary The Fog of War for a closer examination of that man’s thoughts.) Ellsberg’s expertise was focused on the ever-escalating conflict in Vietnam, and though it was a positive career move having his reports read by the highest echelons of power, he felt conflicted when those reports were misused or ignored. This was never more evident than when LBJ pushed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution based on fallacious evidence, plunging the U.S. deeper into the Vietnam War.

As the conflict in Southeast Asia continued to escalate under LBJ’s regime, so too did Ellsberg’s doubts about the men he worked for and the top-secret security he was supposed to maintain. He met his future wife, Patricia, a liberal radio interviewer who couldn’t live with a man allied with warmongers. He visited Vietnam in person, actually leading a few military patrols on the ground and getting a strong sense of the unwinnable nature of the war. And, at the RAND Corporation, he participated in assembling a 7,000-page comprehensive account of American involvement in Vietnam since the end of World War II. This top-secret document implicated every U.S. president since Harry Truman in concerted efforts to escalate the American presence there.

And by 1969, when Nixon–elected with campaign promises to end the Vietnam War–was considering using nuclear weapons against the Viet Cong, Ellsberg had a profound change of heart. What he did next was radical, revolutionary, and illegal.

Co-directors Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith wisely allow Ellsberg to narrate his own story, and their non-linear chronological structure reveals some intimate background details of his life that cast shades on his later actions. Particularly telling is his account of how his mother and sister died in a car accident when his father fell asleep at the wheel, and how this led him to believe that even those you love or respect need to be watched carefully.

This outlook helped Ellsberg when he faced the defining challenge of whether to do what was necessary to maintain a life and career, or do the right thing and put all that in jeopardy. Ellsberg chose the latter, and though Nixon vilified him and former friends shunned him, his decision led to reinforcement of our freedoms of speech and of the press. It was also the tip of the iceberg for the Watergate-related scandals that would erupt shortly thereafter and bring down the Nixon administration. (John Dean, the White House aide who famously remarked that “there is a cancer growing on the presidency,” refers to Nixon in one scene as “the imperial president.”)

The Most Dangerous Man in America is a fascinating history lesson, and the story of Daniel Ellsberg is still important in our current political climate. The nationwide press, along with a few principled individuals like the little-known senator from Alaska who filibustered the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional record, helped this whistleblower stand against a policy they knew was wrong. The government labeled Ellsberg a traitor, and the papers as unpatriotic. But what they did was simply expose hidden truths to the bright light of day. And it’s refreshing in the era of Internet rumors and fact-ignorant protestors to be reminded of someone who refused to let the truth be buried and secreted away under similar rumormongering and personal quests for power.

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