‘The Most Dangerous Man in America’ Honors a Patriotic Whistleblower

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Rating: 4.0/5.0

CHICAGO – Is the Iraq war merely a continuation of Vietnam? In both cases, were we led to war under false pretenses, with the assurance that we were preserving democracy? Viewers on both sides of the political spectrum will be arguing about these questions long after this documentary, and the current war itself, is over.

Without even mentioning Iraq, this film indirectly highlights several provocative and unsettling similarities between the past and current wars, proving that history tends to repeat itself more often than one would care to admit. “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers” is the deservedly Oscar-nominated portrait of the outraged military analyst who leaked a top-secret Pentagon study to the press. Younger viewers less familiar with Ellsberg will be riveted by his story, while older viewers will be startled by the extent to which he evolved, and the risks he undertook, in order to release the truth to the American people.

Read Matt Fagerholm’s full review of “The Most Dangerous Man in America” in our reviews section.

Ellsberg worked closely with defense secretary Robert McNamara, whose extraordinary confessional in Errol Morris’s masterwork “The Fog of War” would make an ideal companion piece with this picture, which is narrated by Ellsberg himself. There’s chilling footage of McNamara lying to a reporter about his optimism concerning the war, immediately after telling Ellsberg his grave doubts. Like many Americans, Ellsberg grew up with an innate trust of the government that extended into his adulthood. His gradual discovery of the lies perpetuated by the officials he worked under is heartbreaking. His fight to preserve the ideals of the America he once believed in is thrillingly Capra-esque. But unlike Mr. Smith, Ellsberg is partly to blame for the evils he exposed, since he knowingly contributed to them.

When President Johnson needed “justification” (reports of the Viet Cong’s atrocities) for his systematic bombing campaign, Ellsberg sought it out, in the form of an isolated incident. Like many presidents before and after him, Lyndon Johnson heard only what he wanted to hear. He latched onto the Gulf of Tonkin incident in order to justify his escalation of the war, while ignoring subsequent reports that the incident had nothing to do with the North Vietnamese. When McNamara ordered a comprehensive study of the war in June ’67, Ellsberg found evidence that Johnson was one of several presidents, beginning with Truman and ending with Nixon, who upheld the same corrupt policies. They supported unscrupulous regimes in South Vietnam, while fending off free elections and financing France in its Indochinese war. Johnson and Nixon neither had a plan nor a desire to end the war in Vietnam.

Read Matt Fagerholm’s full review of “The Most Dangerous Man in America” in our reviews section.

The Most Dangerous Man in America
Photo credit: First Run Films