“The Most Dangerous Man in America” Reflection

• In your view, what is the legacy of the government actions documented in the Pentagon Papers? How have such actions influenced democracy and trust of government in the United States?

The legacy left by the US government after the Pentagon Papers is not good. It basically told Americans, “hey, we have been lying to you and doing a lot of illegal things and it has been going on for a long time.” “We seek no wider war” was a lie and the Presidents and everyone working at the Pentagon knew it. Ellsberg said that thousands of government people knew this was going on, yet no one leaked information until Ellsberg years later. If just a handful of people knew, than that would be one thing. But thousands knowing for years and only one leak. That does not promote any trust for Americans to feel towards the government.

• While being interviewed by television journalist Walter Cronkite, Ellsberg says the lesson he took away from his experience with the Pentagon Papers was that “the people of this country can’t afford to let the president run the country by himself without the help of Congress, without the help of the public.” How would you define the lesson or lessons of the Pentagon Papers and the events surrounding their release to the public?

I thought the story that Ellsberg tied in about his father falling asleep at the wheel was really cool. His father was not a bad man and he honestly loved his daughter and wife. But despite that love, he fell asleep at the wheel and allowed the car to crush the two women in his life. This is similar to any President. They may love America and want to do what’s best, but they can still make mistakes and they need support and assistance to be able to do what is truly right for the country. I think Presidents also have a little more fear in them since the Papers. Because leaks have happened before and they will happen again. So if a President feels like they are about to do something the public wouldn’t like, they may not do it because of the fear the Pentagon Papers has left.

• What role or roles did media play in Ellsberg’s success and/or lack of success in stopping the bombing and, ultimately, the war in Vietnam? How do media actions then compare to media war coverage now? How did the Pentagon papers change the role of the media in the United States?

Well the newspapers, The New York Times specifically, are what made this leak possible for Ellsberg and his effort to stop the war. The published volumes from the study and explained to the public what it meant. Whenever any story is as big as this, it invokes chaos initially. So when this story first was published, the government, the American people and other media sources didn’t know what to do.

• Max Frankel (New York Times Washington bureau chief during the Pentagon Papers era) reflects on his newspaper’s Supreme Court victory, saying, “The cry of national security does not justify censorship in advance.” In your view, under what circumstances do journalists have the right or responsibility to reveal classified information and under what circumstances should they refrain from doing so? Under what circumstances, if any, should they be prohibited from doing so by the government or by law?

If something illegal is going on, report it. If reporting the information will put lives in danger, don’t do it. I understand that it seems much more simple to be because I’m not in the thick of it. But the difference between revealing troop movements to the world and telling about past lies is very different. Though, lives being in danger, that can mean a lot of different things. Because what if a country is so outraged about wrongs that were done to them and then printed that they attack the US? Or what if troops from other countries are put in danger? Do you still publish? I have no idea, because news stories can cause chain reactions that are sometimes not foreseen. I know I would never want to be the trigger for something like that.

Unless the government wants to have an editor for every major newspaper in the country, deciding what can and can’t be published is difficult because there is so much grey. When a newspaper gets a good leak, they throw a party, but the government does damage control and looks for someone to fire. I think the only law that should be in place, is that if the information published would cause immediate danger to citizens, then it cannot be published.

• In your view, what would the effect on a free press have been if the Supreme Court had ruled in favor of the Nixon administration and prohibited newspapers from publishing the Pentagon Papers, or if after publication The New York Times had been prosecuted under the Espionage Act ?

Free press would have proven to be a lie if the Nixon Administration had won. Our presses would only be free as long as the government was happy. Which sort of makes the press pointless. The entire goal of the American press from the start was to be a watchdog and to serve as a fourth estate. That cannot happen unless the press is truly free.

• In your view, would today’s major news media outlets be likely to make public the type of classified documents that The New York Times and other newspapers were handed in 1971? Why or why not?

I think the newspapers today would publish important information like the Pentagon Papers. They already feel confident they would not be sued because of what happened with the Pentagon Papers, and let’s face it, newspaper managers want papers to sell. Our media thrives on scandal and government scandal with hard evidence is a beautiful thing to any media company. Also, the media knows that Americans would want to hear the information. And if the information has already leaked to one paper, it won’t be long until it gets to another media source.