I spent 46 minutes this morning with “the most dangerous man in America.” Not in person- it was over the phone- but it was thrilling all the same.
I’m talking about Daniel Ellsberg, who earned the “most dangerous” title from none other than Henry Kissinger, as a result of Ellsberg’s decision to leak top secret documents about the Viet Nam War which revealed profoundly disturbing truths about what the U.S. had done in Viet Nam over the preceding decades. Ellsberg had worked for the Pentagon as a consultant since 1964, so it was remarkable that someone in his position would develop such serious misgivings about our presence in Viet Nam and what we were doing there. The dramatic transformation of Ellsberg’s attitudes about the war- and his decision to leak the secret documents and risk decades in prison- is the subject of an amazing, Oscar-nominated P.O.V. documentary titled “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers.”
So here’s how this interview came about: Last Wednesday, I called P.O.V. to arrange an interview with one or more of the filmmakers responsible for the Ellsberg film – only to be told that their press junket was completely booked. I was dumbfounded because that had never happened before, and it made me realize that an exceptional amount of buzz was surrounding this particular film. Sadly, I resigned myself to having missed out. But later that day, I got a call on my cell phone from a publicist working directly with Mr. Ellsberg. (The folks at P.O.V. must have given her my number and encouraged her to call me.) She was calling to offer me the chance to interview Mr. Ellsberg himself – which I never dreamt was even an option. (When I called P.O.V., it never even dawned on me to ask if Mr. Ellsberg himself was doing interviews about the film.) Needless to say, this was an absolutely mind-blowing turn of events!
It took a little bit of doing, but we were able to lock in an interview time for this morning at 9:30 pacific . . . which I initially miscalculated to be 7:30 central, but my wife helped correct my error. (I don’t know what I would have done if I had managed to book such an important interview and then failed to call at the proper time because I screwed up the time zones – but I know it would have involved jumping off a bridge!) So today at 11:30 central (the correct time) I picked up the phone and dialed Mr. Ellsberg’s home (yes, believe it or not, I was given his home phone number) – and after just a ring and a half, Mr. Ellsberg himself answered the phone. Eureka!
But then. . . It turns out that Mr. Ellsberg was not expecting my phone call after all. Evidently, the publicity agent with whom I set up the interview had neglected to notify him about the booking- or (more likely) she had sent him an email which he never managed to read. Whatever the reason, he knew nothing about the interview with me- and for about a second-and-a-half I tried not to suffer a stroke. But then, even though he had just finished up three hours of radio interviews, he felt like he was up for one more – so he told me to go ahead. And just like that, I was doing an interview with “the most dangerous man in America.” And I decided not to ask him how long he could talk- but to just start rolling and see how long we could go before he said “time’s up.” And 46 minutes later, I was thanking Daniel Ellsberg for what is easily one of my top three favorite interviews in more than twenty years of doing morning shows.
I watched the documentary three times through Sunday afternoon while I did laundry and prepared for our Musici Amici potluck- so by the time the interview rolled around, I had a whole list of questions . . . and because I was so anxious for the interview to go well, I actually sat down and wrote some questions out – something I almost never do. One of my favorites: “A number of people then- and even some people now- describe the transformation of your opinion about our involvement in the Viet Nam as a simple case of a Hawk turning into a Dove. Is that a gross and inaccurate oversimplication? Or is that a fair way to describe how your feelings about the Viet Nam War changed over time?” That question yielded an especially thoughtful and interesting answer from Mr. Ellsberg – but you’ll have to hear the interview to hear that answer.
Another favorite moment of mine from the interview was when I talked about what is an especially powerful and moving moment in the documentary. Ellsberg talks about hearing a draft resistor give a speech right before he is to be jailed – and in that moment, he realized that he had to move ahead with his efforts to end our involvement in Viet Nam, even if it meant his own imprisonment. In the documentary, we see the dramatic moment when Ellsberg sits across from that draft resistor, some forty years after the fact, and tells him how the experience of hearing that young man speak so courageously had the effect of splitting Ellsberg’s life in two- and you can hear Ellsberg’s voice breaking as he thanks him for being such an inspiration to him. It’s a powerful moment.
Public opinion at the time was certainly divided over what Ellsberg had done- and certainly there are still plenty of Americans who regard him as a traitor to his country. This documentary does not go out of its way to talk someone out of whatever their opinion of Ellsberg might be. What it does do – and remarkably well – is to help all of us understand why Ellsberg felt so compelled to do what he did, even though it could have so easily resulted in a prison sentence of twenty years or more.
“The Most Dangerous Man in America” airs Tuesday night on the PBS series P.O.V. I highly recommend it. My interview with Mr. Ellsberg airs on Tuesday morning, 8:11 – 9:00 on WGTD FM 91.1 – or over the website, wgtd.org. Once the interview airs you can hear it any time you like via the web site’s morning show archive. On the front page you click on TALK to be taken to the morning show page, where the archive is located.
Over the years, I have spoken to some very famous people such as Jimmy Carter, Madelyn Albright, Gene Hackman, Mario Cuomo, Marlo Thomas. . . but those were all rather brief interviews which left me both excited and frustrated in equal measure. But this was an instance in which I got to speak with someone tremendously significant- and had ample opportunity to ask everything of them that I wanted to ask. To quote the lyrics of Mr. Ira Gershwin, “who could ask for anything more?” Not me.
pictured above: Daniel Ellsberg and draft resistor Randy Kehler, and their dramatic, moving, face-to-face reunion which is captured in the documentary.