Episode Information

In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg, a leading Vietnam War strategist in the Pentagon, concludes that America’s role in the war is based on decades of lies. He copies and leaks 7,000 pages of top-secret documents to The New York Times and then to The Washington Post, a daring act of conscience that leads directly to Watergate, President Nixon’s resignation and the end of the Vietnam War – as well as a Supreme Court ruling expanding press freedom. After The Times started publishing “The Pentagon Papers” in June 1971, National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger told his staff that Ellsberg was “the most dangerous man in America who must be stopped at all costs.” Ellsberg and a who’s-who of Vietnam-era movers and shakers give a riveting account of those world-changing events in Oscar-nominated The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers by award-winning filmmakers Judith Ehrlich (The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight It) and Rick Goldsmith (Tell the Truth and Run: George Seldes and the American Press). http://www.mostdangerousman.org/about/