The Most Dangerous Man in America


It's been out a few months, but it recently opened
at our local independent non-profit film venue.
Given that I'm a history junkie, 
it was time for a field trip to see
this Academy Award-nominated documentary.


This film about Daniel Ellsberg 
and the infamous Pentagon Papers
is a fascinating look at American political
and legal history arising out of one man's
change of mind and heart
and his crisis of conscience. 

What do you find so compelling a principle
that you'd risk career and prison?

For most people, the answer is
nothing.

Comments

Amy said…
Thank you for the "heads up." I barely remember the Ellsberg affair - clearly, he was acting on principle, right? I added it to my NetFlix queue so my history lesson is coming!
March 14, 2010 at 7:52 PM
Meri said…
Absolutely. He had been a staunch believer in the war, working as a war policy expert for the Rand Corporation and later in the Pentagon. And then Robert McNamara, who thought the Vietnam War was going poorly but couldn't get the president to see it, commissioned a secret study by the Pentagon to look at the whole history of American involvement in Vietnam (apparently we secretly financed the French-Vietnamese conflict). That study became known as the Pentagon Papers. Daniel Ellsberg had super-secret clearance and began reading this report. What he learned sickened him -- systematic lying to the American people for five administrations. The rest, of course, is history, but the documentary really shows Ellsberg's evolution from war proponent to activist. It wasn't an easy path for him.
March 15, 2010 at 8:43 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Girl and Her Dog

Image
It's Sepia Saturday again. Since my dear mother is recovering  from shoulder replacement surgery, I thought I'd feature her image this week. This is little Betty with her dog Spot. She was born in a small town in Oregon, the third of four sisters. The Depression defined her childhood, though I don't know how much she knew or understood. Her high school years were spent in the shadow of World War Two. She went to college at a time when women sought an "MRS." degree. She had a lovely singing voice and often performed  as the vocalist for weddings and funerals. I remember once when I was really little that she was on television in Indianapolis. She worked in the library at Butler University, putting Hubby through school, so to speak. She worked on and off through my childhood, when working mothers were somewhat odd and not at all normative. It wasn't a matter of personal choice as much as necessity, because her husband's ministerial salary couldn'...
Read more