esrosedotblog

REALLY BIG LEAKS

Today's film was the documentary

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

I lived through this. The Pentagon Papers were, in themselves, an indictment of four Presidents for their lies about Viet Nam.

But perhaps even bigger, was the resulting coverup of the Nixon Administration, the invasion of Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office by the famous "Watergate plumbers" and the proceedings to impeachment of Richard Nixon which led to his resignation.

And even bigger than that was the decision by the Supreme Court that the Pentagon Papers themselves, which had been suppressed by the lower courts, could be published. An unprecedented, landmark decision for the First Ammendment.

One of Ellsberg's enduring disappointments was the people didn't actually read the papers and were unmoved by them. But Congress held hearings and a new Senator read the papers aloud as part of a filibuster and they became part of the Congressional Record.

The hearings were so rowdy, Ellsberg testified, that in just nine months, the War was over. Congress had refused to fund it. Cut off the money.

The man behind all this was a hero. Courageous. Wiley and clever in the way that he worked to get the material out.

I have never seen as thorough a rundown of Ellsberg, the man, although, as narrator, it is probably not the most probing film for that purpose. But we get to see him from his time as an advisor to Lyndon Johnson, through his work at the RAND Corporation, a government think tank set up to hide the situation in Viet Nam as well as other secret operations.

He began to question what was happening as he visited Viet Nam and learned that many of the news items were faked.

He saw the devastation of the people.

Ellsberg is a Marine and had commanded a Company in Viet Nam.

He was not a peacenik although he ended as a spokesman for a lot of peace movement activities. He was a pariah among his former associates except for a few who worked with him on the Papers.

This film is very high quality. They use reenactments to heighten the drama. Ellsberg is used to good effect throughout as are a few talking heads.

The use of news and video clips is very creative. They even have cartoon drawings to show some of the covert action the papers used as they tried to avoid prosecution for printing the papers.

It has the same impact as a feature fiction film. It is quite emotional. The impact is visceral.

I liked this film very much and would like to see it again. It might go well with The Fog of War, the McNamara doc in which he recants.

I will give it a 5 out of Netflix5.

Labels: films