It’s easy to compare the first half or so of The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers to Errol Morris‘ fascinating documentary The Fog of War, which allowed former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to tell his own story in his own words. Daniel Ellsberg’s story intersects with McNamara’s–the two men worked together in planning the Vietnam War in 1964, even while President Johnson made promises on the campaign trail that he would not expand the United States’ belligerent policies in Southeast Asia. While Morris’ film is visually slick and extremely compelling in its portrait of McNamara, it can hardly be called inspirational. While its subject often plays the role of confessor, McNamara’s doubts and regrets are all the more depressing in that they are expressed so late in his life.

Not so Ellsberg. Much like McNamara, he was initially a hawkish war architect eager to help stop the spread of communism. But, with his access to top-secret information and on-the-ground experience, he was too well informed to remain so. At first, Most Dangerous Man documents his private struggle during this time, using his own interviews and narration, as well as interviews with his eventual wife, who was an anti-war activist well before he was. After his decision to pass the famous Pentagon Papers to the New York Times, the film opens up into a larger, and frankly rather epic, confrontation between the nation’s press and Richard Nixon. It makes effective use of both Nixon’s tapes (it never fails to amaze me how villainous he sounds in them) and a growing armada of newspapers armed with Ellsberg’s leaked documents. It expresses very well how journalists’ solidarity, both with their source and with each other, helped Ellsberg avoid a life in prison. And though the true meaning of the Pentagon Papers, even now, may not have been fully digested by the American public, I doubt you’ll come out of this film feeling depressed. – [DVD]

Documentary

Not Rated

DVD Release Date: 7/20/10