In 1966, U.S. State Department analyst Daniel Ellsberg is sent to Vietnam, where he embeds with American soldiers and documents the on-the-ground reality of the Vietnam War. He soon realizes that the war is hopeless, and, when he returns to the U.S. to deliver his report, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara agrees. However, Ellsberg is left disillusioned when McNamara continues to publicly justify further deployments of American troops.
After his mission ends, Ellsberg works for the RAND Corporation, a think-tank with access to classified information. Over the following years he secretly copies thousands of classified pages documenting long-term U.S. interference in Vietnam, dating back to the Truman administration; once he finishes copying the full collection, he leaks it to journalist Neil Sheehan at The New York Times.
Questions & Comments
Sort By: