The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
Event on 2011-02-25 16:00:00

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

2009. USA. Directed by Rick Goldsmith, Judith Ehrlich. Goldsmith and Ehrlich carefully trace the story of Daniel Ellsberg, a Pentagon analyst in the 1960s under Robert McNamara, and how he came to leak the Defense Department”s Pentagon Papers, a classified study on America’s 25-year involvement in Vietnam that revealed critical truths withheld from the public through several presidencies. This engrossing film, made up of archival broadcast footage and interviews with Ellsberg and others, reveals why Ellsberg made the decisions he did and how the Nixon Administration sowed the seeds of its own destruction by going after both Ellsberg and the nation’s press. The film, which was nominated for a 2009 Academy Award, has become freshly relevant amid the ongoing Julian Assange/WikiLeaks saga and renewed debates about government secrecy and the conflict between “national security” and the public’s right to know. New Day Films. 94 min.

at Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53 Street
New York, United States