I've previously mentioned that I can read three pages of a book and intuitively know if it is going to be a page turner or not. Last night, I looked on Amazon Prime for a movie I thought might be enjoyable. The General on the other hand can watch three minutes of a movie and know if it has value. Her initial take on The Post, gave it a thumbs down.
The Post was released in 2017 justifying the decision on part of the Washington Post to publish the Pentagon Papers, a set of classified documents that had fallen into their hands that exposed decades of lies promulgated by National leadership in high places justifying the war in Vietnam.
In the opening of moments of the movie, U.S. State Department analyst Daniel Ellsburg is sent to Vietnam to ascertain from interaction with American soldiers and military leadership whether U.S. involvement in Vietnam was making a difference. It was his assessment that the war effort was hopeless.
Coincidentally, Robert S. McNamera, Secretary of Defense, makes the same assessment with Ellsberg present but then returns to the U.S. to publicly applaud the war effort and provide a glowing report on the difference that was being made by United States involvement. The year was 1966.
I don't want to spoil the movie for you by sharing more. All I will say is that Kathryn Graham, the owner and publisher of The Washington Post, determines in 1971 that the public needed to know the truth. However, sharing the truth potentially came with a host of threats by President Richard Nixon who reportedly like his predecessor, Lyndon Johnson, took advantage of the public trust and relied on the secrecy of classified documents to protect the executive branch of government from the need to expose the truth.
The matter was settled by the Supreme Court who argued the case on June 26, 1971, and rendered an opinion on June 30, 1971. The Supreme Court ruled that the Executive Branch of government seemed to have forgotten the essential purpose and history of the First Amendment.
Watching the movie made me long for the day, when news was based on truth rather than what in today's world is often passed for truth.
All My Best!
Don
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