(2009) "Non-co-operation is a protest against an unwitting and unwilling participation in evil.... Non-co-operation with evil is as much a duty as co-operation with good." - Gandhi. The title of this documentary comes from Henry Kissinger's referring to Daniel Ellsberg as "the Most Dangerous Man in America" who "has to be stopped at all costs." In 1971 Nixon and Kissinger may have been the most dangerous men in the world.

In telling the story of the whistleblower who made WikiLeaks possible, directors Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith, who co-wrote the script with Lawrence Lerew and Michael Chandler, assembled a cast from the past for interviews, including Ellsberg, his second wife Patricia Ellsberg, son from first marriage Robert Ellsberg, former RAND analyst and Nobel laureate Thomas Schelling, professor of international law Richard Falk, director of the "Plumbers Unit" in the Nixon White House Egil "Bud" Krogh, former Nixon aide John Dean, peace activist Janaki Tschannerl, former representative (R-CA) Pete McClosky, ACLU representative Anne Beeson, and draft protester (from Wyoming) Randy Wheeler.

Along with archival footage, animation and re-enactments were employed to recreate the events. At the age of 28 Daniel Ellsberg began working for the RAND Corp in 1959 after serving in the Marine Corps as an infantry company commander from 1954-7; in August 1964, just as the Gulf of Tonkin incident took place, he went to work as an analyst at the Pentagon as special assistant to Assistant Secretary of Defense John McNaughton, under Defense Sec Robert McNamara.

Aware that no actual attack had occurred, Ellsberg witnessed how President Johnson twisted the facts and launched the war in Vietnam. Worse, Ellsberg's research, providing the administration with a single incident of possible atrocity against two US soldiers, became the excuse for a bombing campaign all out of proportion with the mistreatment.

In 1965 Ellsberg personally visited Vietnam, where he discovered the hoax of control in the South, taking part in a patrol caught in an attack, leading him to ask: "Do you ever feel like the Redcoats?" "We were not going to win," he concluded: "These guys were not going to give up."

Returning on a flight with McNamara, Ellsberg informed his boss of how the conflict was a stalemate, not improving, only to hear the Secretary of Defense baldly lie in announcing progress to the public. Nevertheless, McNamara ordered from RAND a thorough, comprehensive study of the war, which was to be kept secret from LBJ.

Following the 1968 Tet Offensive, a blow to American morale, Ellsberg, realizing he was not discharging his duties to the Constitution, the country, and the public, for the first time leaked information to Neil Sheehan of The New York Times. He shared with Henry Kissinger, National Security Advisor to Nixon, his belief that the US was facing a no-win option. The circumstances in government reminded Ellsberg of his own father's inattention, literally asleep at the wheel, which killed his mother and sister.

For the first time in 1969 Ellsberg reads the report completed at McNamara behest in which four previous presidents, from Truman to Johnson, each participated in deceiving the American public to avoid the stigma of losing Indochina to Communism. His conscience questions his own past, both activities in support of the war and silence, further making him an accomplice for not speaking out - the Boston Globe's Tom Oliphant remarks on Ellsberg's severe self-judgments: how could he have done what he'd done?

"We were on the wrong side," says Ellsberg, who then surreptitiously took part in peace activism where he saw young men demonstrate their willingness to go to prison for their anti-war acts: "My life split in two." Separating himself from his former covert support of the war, Ellsberg went from being an observer of government to a participant to end the pattern of deception, which he saw continuing into the new Republican administration (Nixon had won the election on promises to bring the war to an "honorable" conclusion), from an internal critic to a radical.

After RAND colleague Tony Russo, also opposed to the war, encourages Dan to leak the top-secret documents, the two men, along with help from Ellsberg's 13-year-old son and ten-year-old daughter, begin photocopying in the fall of 1969. Putting his hopes in Congress, he distributes copies of the documents to those who had expressed objections to the war, but the Senate ignores what was now before its eyes.

To spare further notoriety for his employer, Ellsberg leaves RAND for MIT's think tank; in the summer of 1970 he also marries Patricia Marx, a syndicated radio host and anti-war activist he'd met in 1964. Frustrated with his futile efforts to raise the conscience of Congress - historian Howard Zinn comments on the timidity of legislators who held similar views against the war - in 1971 Ellsberg leaks the Pentagon Papers to Sheehan and Hedrick Smith of The New York Times.

When a federal court issues an injunction, curtailing further publication, The Washington Post takes the papers to press until ordered to halt as well. Then in the Senate Mike Gravel (D-Alaska) agrees to read the Pentagon Papers throughout his filibuster; after Walter Cronkite interviews Ellsberg at a secret location, the CBS News airs the session. Eventually the Boston Globe and more than a dozen other newspapers and media outlets disseminate Ellsberg's cache of government secrets; the US Supreme Court rules against the government efforts at suppression.

While Ellsberg ("Would you go to prison to help end this war?") and Russo, who refuses to testify against Daniel, are threatened with years of incarceration for acts of espionage, Nixon next goes to the dark side with the Plumbers Unit, headed by Krogh, resulting in Watergate and a burglary of Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office. Once again Ellsberg, having chosen conscience over his career, is dismayed by the lack of public reaction: Nixon is re-elected in 1972, and the war goes on.

In the end justice prevails: Judge Byrne (who was offered directorship of the FBI during the trial) declares a mistrial because of "improper conduct by the government." Congress cuts off funding for the war; the Watergate scandal forces Nixon to resign under threat of impeachment; the war ends nine months later.

In March of this year in Washington, DC, and outside the Marine Corps base at Quantico, along with more than 30 others protesting the treatment of Pfc Bradley Manning, an Army intelligence analyst accused of turning over sensitive files to Julian Assange's WikiLeaks, Ellsberg was again arrested.

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in video and/or DVD format, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

Copyright © 2011 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

Patrick Ivers can be reached via e-mail at .