First Hit: This was an exceptional representation of our government's deceit, the Vietnam War and Daniel’s bold action to change the course of the United States.
Daniel Ellsberg was a bright and motivated young government employee who believed in what he was doing. He assisted senior officials in creating documentation that supported presidential decisions. He then went to the Rand Corporation.
While at Rand he started reviewing a very extensive investigative document which documented how the United States got involved in Vietnam. The document was labeled “Top Secret”, and as Ellsberg read its contents he realized he had to make a monumental decision based on doing the right thing instead of worrying about his career.
Ellsberg had been in Vietnam and had seen the destruction of the land, homes and the mass killing of people. When he read how our Presidents had misled Congress and the American people he knew he had to act on his conscious.
Painstakingly, he smuggled volumes of this report out of a safe in his office at Rand, and nightly he and his children photo-copied them. And each day he returned the papers the he'd removed the previous day. After realizing he wouldn’t be able to change people minds by talking about the report, he decided to leak the documents to Congressional leaders. But they didn't act on the information either, so he gave them to the newspapers to publish.
From there, history was made. A couple of very telling things about this film: The first was Nixon’s taped comments from his office recordings. It is hard to believe that a man in the highest office of our country could sound so arrogant, stupid and act in such a deceitful way.
The other thing was the honesty of interviewed people, especially the ones who indicated they made decisions based on their career and politics, not on doing the right thing for the people in the United States, I loved their honesty.
The interviews of Daniel, his wife Patricia, John Dean, Bud Krogh, Tony Russo and Max Frankel were honest, open and enlightening. Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith co-directed this documentary in fine fashion.
Overall: This is must see film and a warning, we must watch our government and make them fully accountable for their actions. A secret made and kept by a government corrupts the power of those in office.