Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of
the Vietnam War
by Steve Sheinkin
384 pages; ages 10 & up
Roaring Brook Press, 2015
This is a riveting tale of intrigue and power… a tale of an obscure
government analyst turned whistle-blower that reads like a fast-paced spy
novel.
“In the summer of 1964, Daniel Ellsberg was thirty-three,”
writes Steve Sheinkin. After serving in the Marines he worked as an
analyst with the Rand Corporation, a think tank that focuses on military and
international issues. He was asked to work on a project focusing Vietnam as our
country headed into war.
At that point, Ellsberg was hawkish. He believed the US was
doing the right thing. He also knew that to get good information, you had to
actually go to where the action was, so he visited Vietnam.
Upon his return, he tried to show that peace was preferable
to continued war, but the presidents – first Johnson and then Nixon – didn’t
want to “lose” a war. So the fighting escalated, with more and more young men
being drafted and sent to die.
As he collected information, Ellsberg realized that his
government was deceiving the people. He came to the realization that he would
have to do something to end the war. That’s when he decided to photocopy
thousands of pages of what became known as the Pentagon Papers – a study that
revealed the US bombings of Cambodia and Laos and other activities not reported
in the media. The papers demonstrated that the Johnson administration had
systematically lied to the people and to the Congress about what was going on
in Vietnam.
Forty years later history repeated itself. This time with
Edward Snowden, and instead of seven thousand pages of photocopied documents, a
flash drive. But the big questions are the same. “Governments must keep
some information secret in order to function – but how much secrecy is too
much?” asks Sheinkin. Is there ever a time when citizens are justified in leaking information
about their government?
This sounds fascinating and very topical. Thanks for telling me about it. I will definitely check it out.
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