[VIDEO] "The Most Dangerous Man in America!" Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers

[Reason]

YouTube - The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers - Trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXlmQeSpqI4)

[Baptist]

bump. anyone have thoughts on Daniel Ellsberg?

[Cowlesy]

I just watched this movie.

It was a riveting glimpse back into the Vietnam era.

Ellsberg worked for RAND Corporation, and he even details about how he was desperate for info to justify the war to his boss, Secretary McNamara, to the point he'd conflate the smallest thing. He knew, as Johnson and McNamara knew, that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was bullshit.

Nixon wanted to string him up a tree. The Nixon tapes in respect to the Pentagon Papers are unbelievable.

You know what's sad? I had never heard this story, I knew anything about it really until I sat here and watched it "instantly" on Netflix.

The other point that stuck to me, was what the Defense Attorney was told by a government official when Ellsberg was going to trial. "Watch out for middle-aged men. In their youth, they may have had a chance to stand on principle, but for family, country or other reasons, they compromised. They may see Daniel, and hold him in contempt for sticking to his principles, and come down on him."

That's a facet of psychology I never really thought about it, but holds some merit.


If you haven't watched "The Most Dangerous Man in America" -- you need to do so. It is a fascinating, first-hand account of the Pentagon Papers and how it contributed to ending the war.

You see so many parallels between the movie, and what is happening today with Wikileaks.