essay on the post movie

“We have to be the check on their power. We don’t hold them accountable, my God, who will?” Steven Spielberg ’s “The Post,” rushed into production on a turnaround time that only Ridley Scott could possibly match, may be the story of a challenge to the free press in 1971 but lines like that solidify how much it’s intended to also be read as a mirror of 2017. As the President of the United States challenges different journalistic institutions, mostly through his Twitter feed, and “truth” seems to have become a looser term than ever before, “The Post” is designed to be viewed as a commentary on today as much as yesterday, maybe even more. It’s fascinating to consider a film this well-constructed and packed with talented performers that would have played completely differently just two years ago. However, I wonder if hurrying the movie to strike a moment was the right decision. It’s a film that often calls attention to its own self-importance and falters when compared to Spielberg’s best historical dramas like “ Munich ” and “ Lincoln ,” movies that earn their messages instead of just stating them. One can almost see the weight on its shoulders to “say something important,” and it sometimes drags down the entire venture. However, there’s more than enough to like here, including a great ensemble, the best performance from a living legend in years, and, again, a message that feels depressingly timely.

“The Post” tells the story of the Pentagon Papers, choosing to focus on two key players in the unfolding battle between the free press and a White House that struggled to keep the secrets of how our government handled the Vietnam War under wraps. As Fritz Beebe ( Tracy Letts , continuing his amazing 2017) says at one point, this was the first time that the court system of our government basically tried to stop the function of the free press.

It started when Daniel Ellsberg ( Matthew Rhys ) walked away with thousands of pages on the history of Vietnam, including sensitive and confidential information that revealed the lies the government had told the American people for years. To sum it up superficially with a line from the movie, “McNamara knew we couldn’t win in ’65.” Six years later, with thousands of deaths on their hands, the truth was revealed, first in the  New York Times . The courts ruled that the Times couldn’t publish any more of the documents or what they learned from them, but the  Washington Post found their way into the story as well with Ben Bagdikian ( Bob Odenkirk ) getting to the same source as his competition. Suddenly, the Post was sitting on hundreds of pages of sensitive documents that the courts had ruled couldn’t be published. If they ran a story, not only could they go out of business, they could literally be arrested for treason. What would you do?

The two central figures of this story are Kay Graham ( Meryl Streep ), the beleaguered publisher of the Post , doing a good job that too many men around her consider her incapable of doing, and Ben Bradlee ( Tom Hanks ), the editor of the Post , and the man who never questions whether of not they should publish. In casting alone, Spielberg makes clear his opinion of Graham and Bradlee, filling their shoes with two of the most beloved actors of all time. And they both deliver for their director, particularly Streep, who hasn’t given a performance this nuanced in a very long time—reminding one what she can do when she’s paired with the right collaborator (my biggest problem with Streep’s ‘00s and ‘10s work is how rarely she works with directors who challenge her). Hanks finds the right degree of gravity for Bradlee as well, although both occasionally slip up due to a script that too often calls attention to itself. This story should be about Graham’s fear that she may make the wrong decision—for her business or for the state of journalism as a whole—but the stakes don’t always feel right. We never really question what anyone is going to do in “The Post,” especially given how well-reported this story has been. (Although even if you know none of this story, there’s a distinct lack of suspense.) And to make up for that lack of actual tension, co-writers Liz Hannah and Josh Singer sprinkle in heavy doses of the kind of things people only say in movies (“Jefferson just rolled over in his grave,” for example). I often wanted a more tactile, dirtier version of “The Post,” one that didn’t feel like it was taking place in a Hollywood vacuum. Bob Odenkirk almost steals the movie just by seeming the least like a mouthpiece.

However, the truth is that every time “The Post” threatens to slide into pure, pretentious melodrama, the talent of someone involved pulls it out. Whether it’s a subtle choice made by Streep or Hanks, an economy of storytelling displayed by Spielberg, a composition by John Williams —there’s always something to hold on to in “The Post” that keeps it working. Even the sound design—a symphony of typewriter clicking and ringing phones singing out through the Post offices—is engaging. It’s a movie from one of our most essential filmmakers when it comes to pure entertainment, and it works on that level. Even just the parade of familiar faces (I didn’t even mention the always-welcome presences of Carrie Coon , David Cross , Sarah Paulson , or Pat Healy ) will keep you engaged.

Will that engagement continue after the journalistic tumult of the Trump administration? If we’ve learned anything, it’s that challenges to the free press will always persist, and so there are almost certainly lessons for future generations in “The Post.” Will it hold up as cinema outside of its cultural moment? On the one hand, it doesn’t really matter. Despite what people want to argue in comments sections, film doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it often responds to and plays differently because of current events. And so while I’m curious to see how people remember “The Post” in ten years, we can only respond to it today, as institutions like the newspaper at its center are yet again under attack. Where are the Kay Grahams and Ben Bradlees of today? While I wish “The Post” asked this question more directly and angrily, there’s definite value in people this prominent asking it at all.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

• David Cross as Phil Geyelin
• Zach Woods as Daniel Ellsberg
• Meryl Streep as Kay Graham
• Matthew Rhys as Howard Simons
• Bradley Whitford as Fritz Beebe
• Bob Odenkirk as Ben Bagdikian
• Michael Stuhlbarg as Eugene Patterson
• Tracy Letts as Fritz Beebe
• Kelly AuCoin as Kevin Maroney
• Tom Hanks as Ben Bradlee
• Alison Brie as Lally Weymouth
• Sarah Paulson as Tony Bradlee
• Bruce Greenwood as Robert McNamara
• Pat Healy as Phil Geyelin
• Jesse Plemons as Roger Clark
• Carrie Coon as Meg Greenfield

Cinematographer

• Janusz Kaminski
• John Williams
• Josh Singer
• Michael Kahn
• Sarah Broshar
• Steven Spielberg

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• The True Story Behind <i>The Post</i>

The True Story Behind The Post

T he feverishly debated decision behind The Washington Post ‘s 1971 publication of top-secret information in the Pentagon Papers comes to life in the new movie The Post , in which Meryl Streep plays legendary publisher Katharine Graham and Tom Hanks takes on the role of the gruff but brilliant executive editor Ben Bradlee.

As Graham, Streep plays a leader who decides to publish the incendiary information about the Vietnam War amid great pressure, in both directions, from government officials, her lawyers and her own employees.

The papers fell into the Washington Post ‘s hands at a delicate time. The New York Times , which first reported on the papers, had been temporarily banned from publishing the information, which exposed that the government had repeatedly lied to the public about progress in the Vietnam War. Editors at the Post had a small window of time to jump on the story. President Nixon and his administration fought hard to keep the information from going public, even taking the case to the Supreme Court.

Here’s what The Post gets right (and wrong) about the newspaper’s role in the publication of the Pentagon Papers.

Daniel Ellsberg was working for the RAND corporation when he decided to leak the Pentagon Papers.

Ellsberg, played in the movie by Matthew Rhys, worked as a military analyst for the RAND corporation, where he repeatedly snuck out classified military documents to photocopy over three months in 1969. He would copy the documents and return the originals the next day, and in 1971 he sent 7,000 pages exposing the government’s lies about the Vietnam War to the New York Times .

For this, Ellsberg became the first person to be prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act and faced 115 years in prison. Charges were dropped, however, in a mistrial when it came to light that the government had illegally spied on the whistleblower.

Ellsberg has since gone on to become an activist decrying government secrecy. He recently published the book The Doomsday Machine , a revealing account of America’s nuclear program in the 1960s.

The Washington Post was in the process of becoming a publicly traded company at the time of the leak.

Katharine Graham noted in a 1997 interview with NPR that The Washington Post was in a vulnerable position during the time she decided to publish the Pentagon Papers because it was in the process of going public.

“We had announced our plans and not sold the stock,” Graham said. “So we were particularly liable to any kind of criminal prosecution from the government.”

In the film, this fact weighs heavily on Graham, who has taken leadership of the paper following her husband’s suicide. On top of the legal risks, publishing the papers posed a potentially existential threat to the newspaper.

When Post journalists received the papers, they were out of order with no page numbers.

As depicted in the movie, Post reporters really did camp out in Ben Bradlee’s library to go through the papers — which were not exactly organized efficiently. The complete Pentagon Papers were declassified in 2011, making them fully available online for the first time. The Washington Post reported in 2011 that the leaked versions of the papers that it and the New York Times received were heavily redacted, incomplete or illegible.

Katharine Graham was hosting a party on the night she decided to publish the Papers.

In her 1997 memoir Personal History , Graham wrote that she was hosting a party for a departing employee and was in the middle of delivering a toast, just like in the movie, when she was called to the telephone to make the call on whether to publish the papers. After much debate — and, as in the film, finally realizing the decision lay with her alone — Graham said, “Go go ahead, go ahead. Let’s go. Let’s publish.”

Graham was known for throwing great parties, attended by friends including high-ranking government officials like Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. (Whether she was wearing a gold caftan as fabulous as the one Streep sports in the movie is difficult to ascertain.)

The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the Post.

The Supreme Court sided with the news when it ruled in favor of the Post and the New York Times publishing the top-secret information in the Pentagon Papers. In a six-to-three vote, the court ruled that the government did not adequately prove that it had the right to bar the newspapers from publishing the classified history of the Vietnam War on the claim that it was a national security risk.

President Nixon did not ban the Washington Post from the White House after the newspaper published the Pentagon Papers.

While the publication of the Pentagon Papers angered Nixon after his national security adviser Henry Kissinger told him the leaks made him seem like a “weakling,” the former president did not ban Post reporters from the White House for reporting on them. Later, when the Post ‘s reporting on the Watergate scandal gained steam, Nixon began barring reporters from covering social events at the White House — although the journalists still had their press credentials. In the movie, this ban comes earlier, when Hanks, as Bradlee, is trying to figure out how to cover one of the First Daughters’ nuptials, given that his reporters are banned from attending.

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SUBJECTS — U.S. 1945 – 1991 & the Press;

SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL LEARNING — Leadership;

MORAL-ETHICAL EMPHASIS — Responsibility.

AGE : 13+; MPAA Rating: PG-13 for language and brief war violence;

Historical Fiction; 2017; 1 hr 56 minutes; Color. Available from Amazon.com .

Benefits of the Movie Possible Problems Selected Awards & Cast Helpful Background

Using the Movie in the Classroom Discussion Questions Social-Emotional Learning Assignments and Projects

CCSS Anchor Standards Links to the Internet Bibliography

MOVIE WORKSHEETS & STUDENT HANDOUTS

TWM offers the following worksheets to keep students’ minds on the movie and direct them to the lessons that can be learned from the film.

Film Study Worksheet for a Work of Historical Fiction and

Worksheet for Cinematic and Theatrical Elements and Their Effects .

Teachers can modify the movie worksheets to fit the needs of each class. See also TWM’s Historical Fiction in Film Cross-Curricular Homework Project .

DESCRIPTION

This film is historical fiction about the publication of the Pentagon Papers told from the perspective of the second newspaper to publish excerpts of the document.

SELECTED AWARDS & CAST

Selected Awards:

American Film Institute, AFI Awards: Movie of the Year; 2016 Academy Awards Nominations: Best Picture and Best Actress (Meryl Streep) and a host of other awards nominations.

Featured Actors:

Meryl Streep as Kay Graham; Tom Hanks as Ben Bradlee; Bob Odenkirk as Ben Bagdikian; and Bruce Greenwood as Robert McNamara.

Steven Spielberg.

BENEFITS OF THE MOVIE

The Post shows an inflection point in U.S. history in which the press exposed decades of government deception about the Vietnam War and the Courts turned back the ever-increasing power of the U.S. Presidency by rejecting prior restraint on the publication of government secrets, except in extreme situations in which there would be “direct, immediate, and irreparable damage to the nation or its people.” (Concurrence of Justice Steward in the Pentagon Papers case.) The film illustrates many of the forces that came together or competed against each other in the struggle over the publication of the Pentagon Papers. In addition, The Post shows a female executive struggling to gain acceptance in a male-dominated world. The movie also touches upon the Vietnam War, a whistle-blower who was willing to go to jail to expose the truth, and the abandonment of the formerly cozy relationship between the press and the government.

Students can watch, discuss, and write about: (1) the most dramatic example of when the people’s right to know what their government is doing prevailed over the interest of government officials in keeping their actions secret; and (2) the interplay of the following forces and institutions in American society: the power of the U.S. Presidency; a free press; the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; legal restrictions on the publication of top-secret documents; the power and function of the Judicial Branch of the U.S. government; a determined whistleblower concerned for the good of the county; the difficulties encountered by women seeking to exercise power and gain respect in a male-dominated business world; and some of the economics of publishing a newspaper.

POSSIBLE PROBLEMS

The film tells a basically true story. The largest problem with using the movie in education is the filmmakers’ decision to focus on the role of the Washington Post in publishing the Pentagon Papers. The real heroes in the story were Daniel Ellsberg, Aruthur Ochs Sulzberger, Sr. (the publisher of the New York Times), and the reporters from the New York Times. Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers, fully expecting to go to jail for many years as a result of his actions. Sulzberger put his family’s newspaper at risk to publish the documents. Sulzberger and the reporters could have also gone to jail. The New York Times published first and took the greatest risk of government prosecution. The Washington Post played only a secondary role, although the risk was still significant and it did take courage for Katherine Graham to authorize publication. This problem can be turned into a teachable moment about historical fiction. The reason the film doesn’t focus on the New York Times is that there was no Katherine Graham at the Times to provide the human interest component necessary to power a story that would sell tickets at the box office.

HELPFUL BACKGROUND

Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Sr.

Daniel Ellsberg

HISTORICAL ACCURACY

Here’s some of what’s accurate about the movie, and what’s not.

• In the movie, a Post journalist ferrets out the Pentagon Papers. But firsthand accounts credit the leakers with contacting the newspaper. The leakers contacted many papers figuring that the government couldn’t restrain them all.
• The film shows President Nixon’s furious reaction to the Pentagon Papers’ release. However, Nixon was intially unfazed because the Papers tarnished his Democratic predecessors.
• In a pivotal scene, Robert McNamara tries to stop the Post from running the Papers. In reality, he supported publication.
• In the film, Bradlee regrets having kept a cozy relationship with Kennedy while covering him as a journalist. But the real Bradlee believed he did a prudent job straddling both worlds.
• In the film, the Post’s courageous decision to print inspires other newspapers to follow suit. In reality, other newspapers were hungry to get in on the action and published the Pentagon Papers based on the leakers’ distribution plan.
• President Nixon did not ban the Washington Post from the White House after the newspaper published the Pentagon Papers.
• The Post’s and Katherine Graham’s vulnerability to the companies handling the stock offering is correct. Ketherine Graham said, “We had announced our plans and not sold the stock, so we were particularly liable to any kind of criminal prosecution from the government.”
• The meeting in which Graham said, “Go go ahead, go ahead. Let’s go. Let’s publish.” occurred during the retirement party for an employee of the paper.
• There was conflict over the Style Section which Bradlee had instituted ove the protests of some at the paper.

USING THE MOVIE IN THE CLASSROOM

Introduction to the movie.

Introduce the film by telling the class that this movie shows an inflection point in U.S. history. The direction of the country and the government changed after the publication of the Pentagon Papers; things were not the same as they were before. Ask students, as they watch the movie, to think about what changed and to pay attention to the forces in American society that came together or competed with one another to lead to the publication of the Pentagon Papers.

Students will appreciate this film if they have a basic understanding of First Amendment protections for the Press and the era of the Vietnam War. Check for prior knowledge and make sure that students know at least the following information before showing the film.

Freedom of the Press American political theory holds that the people are the sovereign and that the government should serve the people. However, the government cannot serve the people if it misleads them about its actions. Nevertheless, some secrecy is necessary for governments to function, especially in foreign affairs and in times of war. The question is where to draw the line.

As stated by Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas in his concurring opinion in the Pentagon Papers case:

The dominant purpose of the First Amendment was to prohibit the widespread practice of governmental suppression of embarrassing information. It is common knowledge that the First Amendment was adopted against the widespread use of the common law of seditious libel to punish the dissemination of material that is embarrassing to the powers-that-be. [citation omitted] The present cases will, I think, go down in history as the most dramatic illustration of that principle. A debate of large proportions goes on in the Nation over our posture in Vietnam. That debate antedated the disclosure of the contents of the present documents. The latter is highly relevant to the debate in progress. Justice Douglas concurring in New York Times Co. v. U.S. (1971) 403 U.S. 713, 723–724.

The Vietnam War and the Pentagon Papers — The Vietnam War (1955 to 1974) was the largest defeat of U.S. armed forces in the 20th century. In addition, from 1948 to 1974, the U.S. government deceived the American people about American political and military involvement in Vietnam. During the administration of President Lyndon Johnson (1963 to 1969) and continuing through the administration of Richard Nixon (1969 to 1974) U.S. government officials knew that the war was being lost and that the U.S. was unwilling to commit the money and manpower necessary to prevail. However, in order to save face, U.S. officials did not tell the truth about the war. Tens of thousands of American soldiers and many more Vietnamese died so that various U.S. government officials would not be embarrassed.

One of the chief practitioners of the policy of deception, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, ordered a top secret study of the history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. The results, some 7,000 pages, called “the Pentagon Papers,” revealed the deception. Daniel Ellsberg, an employee of the Defense Department decided that this story must be told to the American people. Over a period of several months he smuggled sections of the document out of the guarded facility in which he worked, copying the pages at night and returning them the next morning. In 1970, with the war still raging, Ellsburg brought the document to Congressional leaders. When they did nothing to publicize the government’s wrongdoing or take steps to correct the situation, Ellsberg went to the Press, first to the New York Times.

Publication of the Pentagon Papers by the New York Times

The New York Times spent three months fact-checking the materials; making sure that they were accurate and genuine. When they published the documents, the Government demanded that the Times cease publication of the Pentagon Papers. When the Times declined, the government immediately went to court and obtained a restraining order prohibiting further publication

Female Executives in the 20th century

It was extremely unusual for women to lead major corporations in the 20th century. It was said that “A woman’s place was in the home,” While more and more women were joining the workforce, they were not paid equally with men for the same work and they were not permitted to rise to the full level of their potential. The men in power did not think that women had the capability to lead major organizations.

After Watching the Movie

After showing the movie, ask the class to identify the important forces in American society that competed or cooperated to attain the result that the Washington Post became the second newspaper to publish parts of the Pentagon Papers. A partial list is set out below:

• the freedom of the Press protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution;
• laws prohibiting the publication of government documents classified as “secret” or “top secret;”
• the Vietnam War and the failure of the U.S. to prevail in that war;
• the increasing power of the Presidency and the Executive branch of the U.S. Government in the 20th century;
• the conviction of Daniel Ellsberg that the government shouldn’t mislead the people and his willingness to go to jail, if necessary, to get the story out;
• the role of the Judicial Branch of the U.S. government;
• economic pressures on newspapers;
• belief in the 20th Century about “the place” of women in society and that they are not qualified to make important decisions in business or politics; and
• the difficulties encountered by women seeking to exercise power and gain respect in the second half of the 20th century and

Exercise Based on Supreme Court Opinions in the Pentagon Papers Case

The various concurring and dissenting opinions in the case in which the Supreme Court rejected the government’s request for injunctions prohibiting further publication of the Pentagon Papers is an opportunity to teach students about the U.S. government, the role of the three branches of government, the importance of the First Amendment, and the judicial process. TWM has taken the opinion, redacted portions not relevant to those lessons, and removed most citations that would be meaningless to students. Students who read and understand this document will be given a view of the judicial process in action. High school students with strong reading skills and college students can be assigned all of the various concurring and dissenting opinions. Students without strong reading skills can be assigned just one or two of the concurrences or teachers can read several or all of the opinions to them. Click here for a version in Microsoft Word that can be further edited by teachers desiring to use this resource. Click here for a version in pdf.

Before reading the opinion test for prior knowledge or inform the class as to the following:

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

“Per Curiam” is from Latin meaning “by the court.” A Per Curiam decision is handed down by an appellate court without identifying the individual judge who wrote the opinion. Per curiam decisions are unusual and have less precedential value than decisions in which a judge writes an opinion that is endorsed by at least four other justices (there are nine justices on the Supreme Court; it takes five justices to make a majority). In this case, the opinion was per curiam because of the need for a speey decison and the fact that there were separate concurring or dissenting opinions from each Justice.

There are three levels of federal trial courts. The general trial court is the District Court. There are 94 federal judicial districts: with at least one in each state, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. There are more than 2700 district court judges. The district courts are organized into 12 regions, called “circuits,” each of which has a court of appeal. There is an additional court of appeal for Washington, D.C. The vast majority of appellate cases are decided by the Courts of Appeal. The U.S. Supreme Court hears relatively few cases each year. It selects the cases that it thinks are most important.

“Certiorari” is a Latin word that means, “to be informed of.” A writ of certiorari is an order by the appellate court to the lower court to bring the case before the appellate court. It is used when the appellate court has discretion about whether or not to hear the appeal. The vast majority of cases heard by the U.S. Supreme Court are taken up on the discretionary writ of certiorari.

A “concurring opinion” is written when one or more justices agree with the result of the case, either to affirm the lower court or to reverse the lower court decision, but their reasons are different from those given by the majority. In the Pentagon Papers case, the per curiam decision does not set out a detailed analysis of the reasons for the decision. The justices used their concurring opinions to explain their reasons for voting the per curiam decision. .

A dissenting opinion is given when a justice disagrees with the decision of the court. It explains his or her reasons for the disagreement.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. served on the Supreme Court from 1902 until 1932. He is one of the most respected justices to serve on the Court. He is often quoted as an authority, even when he wrote in dissent. Charles Evans Hughes served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court from 1910 to 1916, then U.S. secretary of state from 1921–25 and then as the 11th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1930 to 1941. He, too, is a respected jurist and his opinions are frequently cited by courts as authority for their decisions.

Examples of How Social Customs Change in Little Ways that Can Make a Big Difference

From an Interview of Katherine Graham by Terri Gross

GROSS: You write that early on after taking over The Post, you were encumbered by a deep feeling of uncertainty and inferiority and the need to be – to please and to be liked. You say, I was unable to make a decision that might displease those around me. How did that affect your decision making early on and your interactions with the staff?

GRAHAM: Oh, it got in my way a lot, but it’s a very – lot of – it tends to be female baggage, and it still is to some extent. But it was much worse then. The way it affected my performance is that I couldn’t say, I’ve listened to everybody, and now I think we ought to do this. I had to get everybody to agree to whatever it was. And if everybody didn’t agree, I’d go around, begging them to see my point of view. And it was just a very poor way to be a leader.

GROSS: Suddenly, you were – your social circle expanded, but that circle was really pretty similar to the one you’d had before with your husband. But now, instead of being the wife, you were the publisher in that circle. How did that change your behavior in that circle? And was there an uncomfortable transition (laughter)?

GRAHAM: I think it was very gradual because I was used to the people I was relating to. I just gradually grew used to it. And I realized that I was going to be conspicuous because I had the job I had. At one point, I was at my friend Joe Alsop’s for dinner, and I had been used to the women and the men parting company after Washington dinners, while the men talked about issues and the women went and powdered their nose and discussed their households.

And at one point, I suddenly realized that I’d been working all day, that I’d been involved in an editorial lunch with somebody who was in the news and that I’d been working and that now I was being asked to go in the other room with the wives. And I said to Joe, who was a good friend, I hope you won’t mind if I slip out of here because the paper comes, and I really can use the time better than going into that room with the wives.

And he said, oh, darling, you can’t do that. And I said, sure I can. I mean, it’s just I don’t want to use my time like that, Joe. And so he was so upset that he made me stay. And he broke up the segregation. And then it broke up all over Washington. So that was an instance where, I guess, suddenly I realized that I was in the working world and that I didn’t have to do those things.

How Katharine Graham Defied A Federal Judge To Publish The Pentagon Papers Interview by Terri Gross, The New Yorker, 12/15/17

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

After watching the film, engage the class in a discussion about the movie..

Note to Teachers: The sophistication of class discussion will increase dramatically if the class has read any of the concurring or dissenting opinions in the Supreme Court’s Pentagon Papers decision. In addition, an excellent way to conduct class discussion is for teachers to at least suggest and require students to rebut arguments contrary to those taken by the students. For example, students who believe that the decision was correctly decided can be asked about the points made in Justice Harlan’s dissent. Thus, TWM suggests that before the class teachers read and familiarize themselves with the reasons given by the various justices for and against the per curiam decision. See Read Excerpts of the Supreme Court Opinions in the Pentagon Papers Case, above.

1. What is the legacy of the government deception surrounding the Vietnam war?

Suggested Response:

Perhaps it was best expressed by Don Rumsfeld an aid to Richard Nixon who later served Presidents Gerald Ford and George W. Bush as Secretary of Defense: There is a tape of H.R. Haldeman, Chief of Staff to Richard Nixon, telling the President:

Rumsfeld was making this point this morning… To the ordinary guy, all this is a bunch of gobbledygook. But out of the gobbledygook comes a very clear thing…. You can’t trust the government; you can’t believe what they say; and you can’t rely on their judgment; and the – the implicit infallibility of presidents, which has been an accepted thing in America, is badly hurt by this, because It shows that people do things the president wants to do even though it’s wrong, and the president can be wrong.

Note that Haldeman was a major participant in the Watergate Scandal. He was convicted of perjury, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice and given an 18-month prison sentence.

2. Do you agree with the Supreme Court decision in the Pentagon Papers case that the government must show clear injury to the national defense before the Courts will enter prior restraint orders that prohibit the publication of top-secret government information?

There is no one correct response to this question. Note, however, that the general consensus of constitutional scholars is that the case was rightly decided. An alternative formulation of the question, is “Which of the concurring or dissenting opinions do you agree with? State your reasons.”

3. What are the responsibilities of newspaper publishers when they are provided with secret or top-secret government information? How do you suggest that they fulfill these responsibilities? Put yourself in the position of an editor of a paper who is given an important top-secret document that will influence the public debate on an issue? What would you do?

[Note to teachers: See the dissenting opinions in the Pentagon Papers case.] There are options other than to publish or not to publish. One is to go the government, inform them that you have the document and then ask them whether there is any part of the document the disclosure of which would endanger the national security or the life of any individual and to explain their reasoning. You could then redact (cross-out so that it cannot be read) certain parts of the document or try to come to some agreement with the government about which parts can be published. If not, you can always decide to publsh and the fact that you tried to work something out with the government will be an important factor in your favor.

4. Public disclosure of the Pentagon Papers challenged the idea that the President could do whatever he wanted in foreign affairs without public scrutiny. How has that concept fared in recent years?

The response will vary according to current events. Up to the date of the publication of this Guide, August 2018, the Congress has shown no ability to challenge the President’s assumption of complete and uncontrolled power in foreign affairs.

5. Generally, do you believe courts should be required to give any deference to the opinions of members of the Executive Branch? If so, how much deference should a court give? Does the subject area under consideration, whether it is national security or sewer maintenance, make a difference?

Courts should give some deference to the opinions of the Executive Branch, especially in areas of national security and foreign affairs. This is the general doctrine of American courts, with some exceptions. However, “deference” doesn’t mean abject surrender.

6. Does the First Amendment permit the courts to enjoin the publication of stories that would present a serious threat to national security?

There is no one correct response. During the discussion ask the class to read again the text of the First Amendment. Could it really mean exactly what it says? Justice Brennan’s position was that: The error which has pervaded these cases from the outset was the granting of any injunctive relief whatsoever, interim or otherwise. The entire thrust of the Government’s claim throughout these cases has been that publication of the material sought to be enjoined ‘could,’ or ‘might,” or ‘may’ prejudice the national interest in various ways. But the First Amendment tolerates absolutely no prior judicial restraints of the press predicated upon surmise or conjecture that untoward consequences may result.

7. Justice Douglas wrote, “Secrecy in government is fundamentally anti-democratic . . . ” Do you agree or disagree? What is the basis for this statement?

The government is the servant of the people and it is the people who must make the fundamental decisions and through their votes guide the government. However, if people don’t know what the government is doing, they cannot make an informed decision. [This question can be asked using any of the quotes in the Assignment Section below.

8. Is Katherine Graham a good role model for American Women?

No, and yes. She inherited the newspaper. Most women will not be so lucky. However, she used her opportunity well and became one of the greatest newspaper publishers in U.S. History. A similar response would relate to this question asked about Hillary Clinton.

See Discussion Questions for Use With any Film that is a Work of Fiction .

MORAL-ETHICAL EMPHASIS (CHARACTER COUNTS)

1. How did Katherine Graham show leadership?

She listened to various opinions and then she made her decision. Once she made the decision she supported her team in carrying it out.

ASSIGNMENTS, PROJECTS & ACTIVITIES

Any of the discussion questions can serve as a writing prompt. Additional assignments include:

1. Select an important phrase from one of the opinions that you either agree with or disagree with and describe your reasons. Here are some examples:

• Secrecy in government is fundamentally anti-democratic . . . — Justice Douglas
• The official holding of the Court was simple, “Any system of prior restraints of expression comes to this Court bearing a heavy presumption against its constitutional validity. . . . The Government thus carries a heavy burden of showing justification for the imposition of such a restraint.” But I cannot say that disclosure of any of them will surely result in direct, immediate, and irreparable damage to our Nation or its people. That being so, there can under the First Amendment be but one judicial resolution of the issues before us. I join the judgments of the Court. —Justice Stewart
• Nor, after examining the materials the Government characterizes as the most sensitive and destructive, can I deny that revelation of these documents will do substantial damage to public interests. Indeed, I am confident that their disclosure will have that result. But I nevertheless agree that the United States has not satisfied the very heavy burden that it must meet to warrant an injunction against publication in these cases, at least in the absence of express and appropriately limited congressional authorization for prior restraints in circumstances such as these. — Justice White
• The Government’s position is simply stated: The responsibility of the Executive for the conduct of the foreign affairs and for the security of the Nation is so basic that the President is entitled to an injunction against publication of a newspaper story whenever he can convince a court that the information to be revealed threatens ‘grave and irreparable’ injury to the public interest;2 and the injunction should issue whether or not the material to be published is classified, whether or not publication would be lawful under relevant criminal statutes enacted by Congress, and regardless of the circumstances by which the newspaper came into possession of the information. — Justice White
• Since the newspaper could anticipate that the Government would object to the release of secret material, would it have been reasonable for the Times to give the Government an opportunity to review the entire collection and determine whether the agreement could be reached on publication?
• To me, it is hardly believable that a newspaper long regarded as a great institution in American life would fail to perform one of the basic and simple duties of every citizen with respect to the discovery or possession of stolen property or secret government documents. That duty, I had thought—perhaps naively—was to report forthwith, to responsible public officers. This duty rests on taxi drivers, Justices, and the New York Times. The course followed by the Times, whether so calculated or not, removed any possibility of orderly litigation of the issues. If the action of the judges up to now has been correct, that result is sheer happenstance. — Chief Justice Burger.
• It is plain to me that the scope of the judicial function in passing upon the activities of the Executive Branch of the Government in the field of foreign affairs is very narrowly restricted. This view is, I think, dictated by the concept of separation of powers upon which our constitutional system rests. — Justice Harlan

2. Research and write a three-page biography of one of the following major characters in the Pentagon Papers story: Katherine Graham, Daniel Ellsberg, Ben Bradlee, and Arthur Ochs “Punch” Sulzberger Sr.

CCSS ANCHOR STANDARDS

Multimedia :

Anchor Standard #7 for Reading (for both ELA classes and for History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Classes). (The three Anchor Standards read: “Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media, including visually and quantitatively as well as in words.”) CCSS pp. 35 & 60. See also Anchor Standard # 2 for ELA Speaking and Listening, CCSS pg. 48.

Anchor Standards #s 1, 2, 7 and 8 for Reading and related standards (for both ELA classes and for History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Classes). CCSS pp. 35 & 60.

Anchor Standards #s 1 – 5 and 7- 10 for Writing and related standards (for both ELA classes and for History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Classes). CCSS pp. 41 & 63.

Speaking and Listening:

Anchor Standards #s 1 – 3 (for ELA classes). CCSS pg. 48.

Not all assignments reach all Anchor Standards. Teachers are encouraged to review the specific standards to make sure that over the term all standards are met.

LINKS TO THE INTERNET

The best articles on this film:.

• Spielberg’s ‘The Post’: Good Movie, Bad History by James C. Goodale, Daily Beast, 12/22/17; [Best general critique of the historical accuracy of the film]
• ‘The Post’ is a fine movie, but ‘The Times’ would have been a more accurate one Roy James Harris, Jr., Poynter 12/21/17;
• Why ‘The Post’ Backlash Misses the Movie’s Real Message by Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 12/27/17 (read until the end – the really great stuff is in the last half of the article;
• The True Story Behind Spielberg’s ‘The Post’ ; Sara Kettler, Biography, 12/18/17
• The Pentagon Papers Case Ten Years Later by Floyd Abrans, New York Times;
• What The Post Gets Right (and Wrong) About Katharine Graham and the Pentagon Papers by Anna Diamond, Smithsonian.com 12/29/17;
• All the President’s Men Took Katharine Graham Out of the Washington Post’s History. The Post Puts Her Back In. by Jason Bailey, Slate 12/13/17;
• How Katharine Graham Defied A Federal Judge To Publish The Pentagon Papers Interview by Terri Gross, Heard on Fresh Air, 12/15/17;
• ‘The Post’ movie and the Pentagon Papers: Inside the newsroom with former editor Len Downie” by Nicole Carroll, The Republic, 1/12/18;
• Article on Ben Bagdikian in Wikipedia ;
• Fact-checking the movie The Post, Oscar nominee for best picture by John Kruzel, Politifact, 2/26/2018;
• by Patrick O’Neil, Extraordinary Conversations 2/5/18 ;
• David Rudenstine on the History of the Pentagon Papers on C-Span 1/6/18 ;

Secondary Articles

• Review: In ‘The Post,’ Democracy Survives the Darkness by Manohla Dargis, The New York Times; 12/21/17;
• Fact-checking ‘The Post’: The incredible Pentagon Papers drama Spielberg left out by Michael S. Rosenwald, The Washington Post, 12/23/17; ;
• Interview with Catherine Graham ;
• The Pentagon Papers in the National Archives ;
• The True Story Behind The Post MAHITA GAJANAN, Time Magazine, 12/26/17;
• Kenneth Turan reflects on ‘The Post’: How a film critic watches movies about experiences he lived through by Kenneth Turan, LA Times, 12/26/17;
• The Post Is Well-Crafted but Utterly Conventional by Christopher Orr, the Atlantic, 12/22/17;
• Steven Spielberg’s Ode to Journalism in “The Post” Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, 12/17 & 25/2017;
• Pentagon Papers — the complete copy in the National Archives;
• The NSA Leaks and the Pentagon Papers: What’s the Difference Between Edward Snowden and Daniel Ellsberg? by Garance Franke-Ruta, The Atlantic Magazine, 6/15/13;
• The Pentagon Papers Case Ten Years Later ;

BIBLIOGRAPHY

See the web pages described in the Links to the Internet Section.

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The Post: History vs. Hollywood

Did katharine graham really take over the newspaper after her husband committed suicide.

Yes. Katharine Meyer married Philip Graham on June 5, 1940. Katharine's father, Eugene Meyer, handed The Washington Post over to his son-in-law Philip in 1946, making Philip publisher. In her autobiography Personal History , Katharine said that she never felt slighted by the fact that her father did not give the paper to her. "Far from troubling me that my father thought of my husband and not me, it pleased me. In fact, it never crossed my mind that he might have viewed me as someone to take on an important job at the paper." Katharine's husband Philip battled alcoholism and mental illness throughout the marriage. On Christmas Eve in 1962, she discovered he was having an affair with Newsweek freelance journalist Robin Webb. Philip planned to divorce Katharine for Webb and started the process of dividing up the couple's assets. However, while at a newspaper conference in Phoenix, he is said to have suffered a nervous breakdown. He returned to Washington, D.C. and entered the Chestnut Lodge psychiatric facility. On August 3, 1963, he was released for the weekend. During our investigation into The Post true story, we learned that Philip committed suicide with a 28-gauge shotgun at the couple's home in Glen Welby. After his death, Katharine Graham stepped in to take control of the newspaper. Meryl Streep (left) as Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham in The Post movie. The real Katharine 'Kay' Graham (right).

What exactly are the Pentagon Papers?

The Pentagon Papers is a U.S. Department of Defense study detailing the history of the United States political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. In part, the Papers revealed that the U.S. had enlarged its military actions in Vietnam without informing the media and in turn the public. The undisclosed military actions included the bombings of nearby Laos and Cambodia, Marine Corps attacks, and raids along the coast of North Vietnam. Essentially, the Papers revealed that the U.S. government had lied about the scope of its military's involvement in the Vietnam War.

Is Bradley Whitford's character, Arthur Parsons, based on a real person?

No. In the movie, Bradley Whitford portrays Washington Post board member/adviser Arthur Parsons, who expresses the board's concern about having a woman in charge of the paper. "Kay, people are concerned, about having a woman in charge of the paper," says Parsons in the movie. "That she doesn't have the resolve to make the tough choices." He later vehemently opposes the publication of the Pentagon Papers. Fact-checking the accuracy of The Post movie revealed that the antagonist Parsons never existed in real life. He is at best a composite character created to represent those at the paper who felt that Katharine Graham was unqualified to be publisher because she was a woman. Bradley Whitford as Post board member Arthur Parsons, a fictional antagonist.

Was The Washington Post 's publication of the Pentagon Papers really as big of a deal as in the movie?

Arguably, no. After Daniel Ellsberg leaked 7,000 pages of the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times , it was the Times that got the story first and took the bigger risk in publishing the top-secret documents. They were unaware of the full scope of legal repercussions they would be opening themselves up to. This is the opposite of Katharine Graham and The Washington Post , which moved forward after The New York Times had broke the story and been temporarily banned from publishing the information. At worst, the Post knew they would be opening themselves up to the same injunction. In addition, The Washington Post had already been writing about the Times publication of the Pentagon Papers before they were able to get their hands on the Papers themselves. Ultimately, by then the story was out and it was less likely that the government was going to harshly punish both papers. The Nixon administration was still adamant about silencing the story, but it was the leaker Daniel Ellsberg who was facing the harshest repercussions. He was the first person to be prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act and was looking at a maximum sentence of 115 years in prison. -TIME Current journalists at The New York Times have taken issue with the accuracy of Steven Spielberg's movie, which they say gives too much credit to The Washington Post . "At The New York Times , colleagues feel that this is a New York Times story. They broke the Pentagon Papers," says Times journalist Cara Buckley.

Did The Washington Post really receive the Pentagon Papers on publisher Katharine Graham's birthday while she was having a party at her house?

Not exactly. The Post movie true story reveals that The Washington Post did receive the Pentagon Papers on Katharine Graham's birthday, but she wasn't hosting a party at her house. She writes in her memoir Personal History , "I celebrated at dinner with...Bob McNamara at Joe Alsop's." Alsop was a lifelong friend and fellow journalist.

Were the leaked documents received by The Washington Post really out of order and missing page numbers?

Like in The Post movie, the true story confirms that the journalists camped out in Ben Bradlee's library to sort the papers, which weren't organized well. They had received them in a cardboard box from leaker Daniel Ellsberg after The New York Times had been temporarily banned by the government from publishing any more of the documents. Consistent with the film, national editor Ben Bagdikian, portrayed by Bob Odenkirk, flew the Papers from Boston to Washington, D.C. with the cardboard box beside him. The Post purchased an empty seat next to him on the plane for the box, an "expense the Post didn't mind paying," Katharine Graham writes in her memoir Personal History . Tom Hanks in The Post movie and Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee in real life.

Personal History is Katharine Graham's autobiography in which she is candid about neglectful parents, her troubled marriage, her husband's suicide, and her time as publisher of The Washington Post . Was Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham really hosting a party when she got the phone call to make the decision about publishing the Papers?

Yes, Graham was hosting a party for a departing employee. Like in The Post movie, she was in the middle of delivering a toast when she received the telephone call for her decision about publishing the Pentagon Papers. -TIME Unlike the movie, prior to the real-life call, Katharine hadn't been worried about publishing the Papers. "It never occurred to me that anything would happen to us, and I thought we were going to go ahead and publish," said Katharine in an interview with Chris Wallace. "I was called to the phone when we were right on deadline, because what had in fact happened was that the editors and the publishers said, 'Of course we're going to publish,' and the lawyers said, 'Really, you can't, because this is really double jeopardy in the face of the Times being enjoined.' She said that this is when the reality of the risk they were taking actually sunk in and she had to make up her mind on the spot. "I really gulped," said Katharine, "and I really was not what your heroic leader is. I just said, 'Oh, go ahead,'" she recalled, while humorously reenacting the deeply worried look on her face.

Was The Washington Post really about to become a publicly traded company in 1971, making it more vulnerable?

Yes. In answering the question, "How accurate is The Post movie?" we confirmed that at the time of the leak, The Washington Post was in the process of becoming a publicly traded company. Like in the movie, this added to the risk of publishing the Pentagon Papers. The price of its shares would surely drop if the company was hit with an injunction or lawsuits from the government, especially if the paper was found guilty in the end. "We had announced our plans and not sold the stock," Katharine Graham told NPR in 1997. "So we were particularly liable to any kind of criminal prosecution from the government."

Is President Nixon really the villain of the story?

No. This is perhaps the movie's biggest inaccuracy. Hollywood loves to put Nixon's head on the chopping block (rightfully so at times), but his portrayal as the villain here is not entirely accurate. The true story is more complicated. The Nixon administration was not even mentioned in the Pentagon Papers, which had been completed before he took office. With regard to the Vietnam War, Nixon didn't start it, he ended it. Yes, he did try to halt the publication of the Pentagon Papers, but his first reaction was to do nothing and allow the publication. Deciding to move forward with the injunction against the Times wasn't to protect his own reputation. He was effectively trying to protect the reputations of his political adversaries, namely Lyndon Johnson and the deceased JFK, who had been in office when the study in the Pentagon Papers took place, which ultimately revealed how they had misled the public. If Nixon was trying to bolster his own self-image, he would have allowed the publication, becoming a champion for the public's right to know. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger also helped to convince Nixon to oppose the publication, telling him that doing nothing would set a precedent for future secrets. In addition, Nixon was concerned with protecting the diplomatic standing of the U.S., especially as he was trying to end America's involvement in the Vietnam War. None of these things mean that he did the right thing in using the courts to halt the publication of the Papers. He did not. The public indeed had a right to know, but trying to do what he believed was the responsible thing does not make him the villain here. And the filmmakers realized that, which is why the movie adds the Watergate break-in, an event that happened a year later. They want to bait you into believing that if he was the villain of the completely unrelated Watergate event, then he was unquestionably the villain here too.

What happened to Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers?

Daniel Ellsberg had been working at the RAND corporation when he made the decision to leak the Papers. RAND is a nonprofit government-financed think tank that at that time focused on conducting research and analysis to improve decision making with regard to the military, the nuclear arms race, healthcare, and other government programs. It had taken Ellsberg three months to smuggle out and photocopy the classified military documents, returning each set of originals the following day. In violation of the 1917 Espionage Act and facing 115 years in prison, Ellsberg escaped prosecution after details emerged that government officials had illegally broken into Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office in hopes of finding information in his file that would prove he was mentally unstable (they found nothing useful). It also came to light that the FBI had illegally wiretapped Ellsberg without a court order. As a result, the charges were dropped. The charges against the leaker of the Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg (right), were dropped when it was discovered that the government had illegally spied on him. Matthew Rhys (left) portrays Ellsberg in the movie.

Did the case go all the way to the Supreme Court?

Yes. At that point, both The New York Times and The Washington Post were under equal restraints from publishing articles about the Pentagon Papers. Like in the movie, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the newspapers in a six-to-three vote. The court decided that the government did not provide substantial evidence to prove that the publishing of the classified history of the Vietnam War detailed in the Pentagon Papers was a national security risk. - TIME

Did Meg Greenfield really announce the Supreme Court's decision aloud to an anxious newsroom as she heard it on the phone?

According to Katharine Graham's memoir Personal History , this happened but it wasn't editorial page editor Meg Greenfield who was listening on the phone. The true story behind The Post movie revealed that it was deputy national editor Mary Lou Beatty who was on the phone call. Beatty is not depicted in the film.

Did President Nixon ban The Washington Post from the White House for reporting on the Pentagon Papers?

No. Here again the movie is somewhat misleading when it comes to Nixon. It's true that Nixon was angered when National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger told him that the leaked documents made him seem like a "weakling," but he did not ban The Washington Post and other newspapers from the White House for publishing them, as the movie would have you believe. In the film, Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) is trying to figure out a way to report on the First Daughter's wedding, given that the Post reporters are not permitted to attend. In reality, banning reporters from covering social events at the White House happened later, when the Watergate scandal was plaguing the Nixon administration. -TIME The Newspaperman HBO Documentary profiles The Washington Post editor, who is portrayed by Tom Hanks in The Post movie.

Were the Pentagon Papers declassified?

Yes. During our investigation into how accurate The Post movie is, we learned that the Papers were declassified in 2011 and are available to read online. At the time of their declassification, The Washington Post reported that the leaked versions of the documents that it had examined decades earlier were largely redacted, illegible or incomplete.

In addition to her memoir, get a firsthand account of the true story behind The Post movie by watching the Katharine Graham Pentagon Papers interview below.

• Read the Pentagon Papers Online at the National Archives

other VVA Commends Congress on Passage of Senator Elizabeth Dole 21st Century Veterans Healthcare and Benefits Improvement Act

‘The Post’: A Vietnam War Story

Review by Marc Leepson,  VVA Veteran Arts Editor and Senior Writer

It’s not every day that a big Hollywood movie opens with an in-country Vietnam War combat scene. In fact, it’s a rarity in the 21 st century.

But that’s precisely how Steven Spielberg starts “The Post,” his star-studded (Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep), gripping look at the high drama surrounding the publication of “The Pentagon Papers”—the top-secret DoD-produced history of the Vietnam War—by The New York Times and The Washington Post in May of 1971.

The Vietnam War opener, under the technical direction of former Marine James Dever (“American Sniper,” “Unbroken,” et al ), gives a stunning start to a movie that’s getting deservedly great reviews. It’s a meaty, relatively short scene. The good news is that it passes muster in the verisimilitude department for Vietnam the country, as well as for the American war in that country.

That scene—and the one that follows—gives the uninitiated the concise backstory for the Pentagon Papers saga. It’s sometime in 1966. We see former gung-ho Marine Daniel Ellsberg, now working as a DoD adviser, donning a steel pot and going along on a jungle patrol that ends very badly for our side. Badly as is plenty of body bags to deal with.

Cut to a U.S. government jet flying back from Vietnam. Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara summons Ellsberg to the front of the plane to get his assessment of the war. It isn’t positive. McNamara wholeheartedly agrees.

Daniel Ellsberg and Matthew Rhys

Then we see McNamara get off the plane in D.C., and tell a bunch of newspaper reporters that the war is going really well and he’s sure the U.S. will prevail. That’s the straw that breaks Ellsberg’s back.

He decides to steal a copy of the Papers from the RAND Corporation, the think tank where he works. Next we see Ellsburg, his colleague Anthony Russo, and Ellsberg’s daughter laboriously photocopying all 7,000 pages of the Papers. The mountain of material soon is turned over to the former Vietnam War correspondent Neil Sheehan at The New York Times .

The Washington Post gets scooped when the Times publishes excerpts. But the next day the Nixon administration orders the Times to stop publishing—the first (and only) time in U.S. history that a president tried to stop a newspaper from publishing an article. During the ensuing legal wrangling, the Post gets its hands on the Papers. Editor Ben Bradlee (Hanks) convinces publisher Katharine Graham (Streep) to publish even though a big federal legal battle that would be sure to follow could deal a financial death blow to the struggling paper.

Spielberg is a great storyteller and that’s this film’s biggest strength. The momentum builds and builds, with roadblocks, side plots, and legal and personal high drama. It’s one of those movies in which the outcome is well known, but Spielberg still makes you root for the good guys—and sweat it out just about to the very end.

Another strong point is the acting, with Hanks and Streep at their best, which means they’re about as good as it gets. They get plenty of help from a strong group of supporting players who get lots to do.

Odenkirk, Cross, and Hanks

That includes Matthew Rhys, the excellent Brit actor best known on these shores for his starring role in the TV series “The Americans,” and Bob Odenkirk (best known as Saul Goodman in “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul”), who gives depth and a bit of humor to his portrayal of Ben Bagdikian, the Post’s national editor who ferreted out Ellsberg when he was in hiding and physically brought a copy of the Papers to the Post on a commercial flight. Other standouts are Carrie Coon as Post Editorial Page Editor Meg Greenfield and the oddball comedian and comic actor David Cross (Tobias in “Arrested Development”), who plays it straight (and really well) as one of the post editors, Howard Simons.

I also liked Tracy Letts (an evil politico on “Homeland”) as Katharine Graham’s top business adviser; Michael Stuhlbarg (“Boardwalk Empire,” et al .) as the neurotic NYT editor Abe Rosenthal; Jesse Plemons (a great bad guy on “Breaking Bad” and a good guy in the second season of TV’s “Fargo”) as the Post ’s top lawyer; and Zach Woods, who played goofy nerds in “The Office” and “Silicon Valley,” but here is totally serious as another Post lawyer.

Spielberg apostates no doubt will find fault with a few schmaltzy scenes and John (“Star Wars”) Williams’ too-often treacly score. But those are quibbles.

Overall, The Post is a top-quality film that examines a vitally important aspect of the American War in Vietnam—and also resonates in today’s political climate, rife as it is with attacks on the mainstream media, including the two newspapers Spielberg and company celebrate in this fine movie.

January 15, 2018

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Rena Kopystenski's An Unbelievable Life: The Woman Who Became Vietnam Veterans’ Voice Against Agent Orange  (Strategic Media Books,…

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On May  5, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences---the folks who give out the Emmys---held a different…

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Review: In ‘The Post,’ Democracy Survives the Darkness

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By Manohla Dargis

• Dec. 21, 2017

Steven Spielberg’s exhilarating drama “The Post” is about a subject that’s dear to the heart of journalists: themselves! Set largely during a few anxious weeks in 1971, it revisits The Washington Post’s decision to publish portions of the Pentagon Papers , an immense classified report that chronicled America’s involvement in Southeast Asia from World War II to 1968. In Mr. Spielberg’s hands, that decision becomes a ticktock thriller about the freedom of the press, the White House’s war on that constitutional right and the middle-aged woman who defended freedom in a fabulous gold caftan.

The real story began with Daniel Ellsberg , the Marine turned government researcher turned clandestine peacenik who first gave the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times . The Times began running portions on June 13, 1971. After the attorney general, John Mitchell, accused The Times of violating the Espionage Act, a judge ordered it to stop publishing the papers. At a pivotal time in American history, the government was preventing the press from getting the news out, on the grounds that it would do injury to national security. Shortly thereafter, The Post, which had been publishing rewrites of The Times’s articles, began running its own excerpts, becoming part of a Supreme Court showdown over the First Amendment.

The Pentagon Papers give “The Post” its heft and pulse; the antagonism between the government and the media gives it a shiver of topicality. Even so, shaping a drama around a newspaper that didn’t break the story seems an odd path to Hollywood triumphalism, though the scrappy Post was itching to be a national player. There’s also the matter of the actual import of the Pentagon Papers. In his memoir, Ben Bradlee, The Post’s longtime editor — winningly played by Tom Hanks with macho suavity and an on-and-off Boston accent — devotes four times as much space to Watergate (a story that his paper did break) as to the Pentagon Papers. Except that “The Post” cares less about the hard-charging Bradlee than it does his boss, Katharine Graham (Meryl Streep), the paper’s late-blooming publisher .

The story opens in 1966 with Daniel Ellsberg (Matthew Rhys), a government analyst on a data-mining mission in Vietnam, pecking out reports on his portable typewriter amid exploding bombs and flowing blood. The secretary of defense, Robert McNamara (Bruce Greenwood, wearing a frozen smile and an oil slick of hair), thinks the war is going badly but grossly mischaracterizes American progress to journalists. Disillusioned with the official script, Daniel eventually goes cloak-and-dagger rogue and is on his way to publicizing the Pentagon Papers, a momentous decision that Mr. Spielberg enlivens with spooky shadows and what may be the most nervous-making photocopying in film history.

The story soon jumps to Katharine, jolting out of a slumber, a sly preview of larger awakenings to come, both her own and that of the country. She’s about to take her company public, a move that she and a close adviser (Tracy Letts, wry and tart) hope will financially stabilize it. During the week that this business is finalized, though, the company will be temporarily vulnerable to its underwriters. The stock offering, Graham writes in her memoir, was scheduled for June 15. Two days, later, The Post had the Pentagon Papers. What happened next is a matter of record, history being the ultimate spoiler. The pleasure of “The Post” is how it sweeps you up in how it all went down.

Mostly, it went down fast, a pace that Mr. Spielberg conveys with accelerated rhythms, flying feet, racing cameras and an enjoyably loose approach to the material. With his virtuosic, veteran crew, Mr. Spielberg paints the scene vividly and with daubs of beauty; most notably, he creates distinct visual realms for the story’s two main overlapping, at times colliding worlds. Katharine reigns over one; at first she’s all but entombed in her darkly lighted, wood-paneled empire. Ben rules the other, overseeing the talking and typing warriors of the glaring, noisily freewheeling newsroom. (The costume designer Ann Roth subtly brightens Katharine, taking her from leaden gray to free-flowing gold.)

Just as Daniel will come into consciousness so will Katharine, a twinned metamorphosis that, in turn, speaks to the larger cultural and social changes shaking the country. Time and again, men crowd over and around Katharine, walking in front of her, speaking for her. As the drama heats up, the typewriters furiously clack — and the political becomes increasingly personal, and the personal turns political — Katharine finds both a new purpose and identity. With small tilts of her head, darting looks, nervous flutters and a Brahmin imperiousness that gradually eases and warms, Ms. Streep creates an acutely moving portrait of a woman who in liberating herself helps instigate a revolution.

Like many movies that turn the past into entertainment, “The Post” gently traces the arc of history, while also bending it for dramatic punch and narrative expediency. The filmmakers fold in atmospheric true-to-life details, like the poster for the western film “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (a favorite of the real Mr. Ellsberg) that Daniel and some longhair pals sweep past on their way to illegally copying the Pentagon Papers. And while it’s no surprise that the movie omits and elides important players and crucial episodes, its honed focus jibes with the view of the former New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis , who wrote that the “public disclosure of the Pentagon Papers challenged the core of a president’s power: his role in foreign and national security affairs.”

That challenge becomes the movie’s cri de coeur, its reason for being. And, as that challenge becomes a crusade, it leads to some lump-in-the-throat grandstanding about the press and its relationship to power. Ben and Katharine each have friends in high government places. These allegiances — to friends, to state authority — are tested by the Pentagon Papers, if rather more tested, perhaps, for the purposes of this fiction. Graham’s husband, Phil, and Bradlee were both close with John F. Kennedy. In her memoirs, Graham writes that her friend McNamara helpfully advised The Times on a legally sensitive letter about the Pentagon Papers, a detail that underscores the depth of these powerful allegiances.

The Pentagon Papers — officially titled “Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force” — is an encyclopedia of outrageous decisions and acts, what Mr. Ellsberg once described as “evidence of lying, by four presidents and their administrations over twenty-three years, to conceal plans and actions of mass murder.” Mr. Ellsberg didn’t stop the war, but he did assert our right, and obligation, to challenge absolute power. That may be why the filmmakers — the script is by Liz Hannah and Josh Singer — slip in a bit from a speech that Mario Savio delivered two years before “The Post” opens and which memorably asserts: “There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part!”

There’s more than a little corn and wishful thinking in the high-minded moments in “The Post”; movies like either to glorify or demonize journalists, relying on heroes and villains. Yet given the recent assaults on journalism and the truth, this heroizing is also irresistible. And Mr. Spielberg, a shrewd entertainer who can be waylaid by moralism, rarely lets virtue drag this movie down. He lightens the heaviness with humor, physical comedy (fumbling, stumbling) and a perfectly synced cast that includes the funnymen David Cross, Zach Woods and a terrific Bob Odenkirk. As a filmmaker, Mr. Spielberg invariably comes down on the side of optimism; here, that hopefulness feels right. It also feels like a rallying cry.

The Post Rated PG-13 for salty language. Running time: 1 hour 55 minutes.

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The True Story Behind 'The Post'

In the spring of 1971, Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee and publisher Katharine Graham heard rumors of a big story in the works at the New York Times . But it wasn't until June 13, 1971, that they were introduced to the Pentagon Papers (the name given to the top-secret report United States-Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967 , which Daniel Ellsberg had surreptitiously photocopied and passed to Times reporter Neil Sheehan). These Papers, released as the Vietnam War continued, revealed how prevalent deception had been throughout the history of the United States' engagement with that country.

Though the Times was then the nation's preeminent paper, the Post 's reputation was on the rise, thanks in large part to Bradlee. Graham had surprised many by moving him from the newsmagazine Newsweek , but the pick had been a good one, as he’d improved the quality of the paper and its newsroom. Getting scooped by the Times stung Bradlee: He demanded his team come up with their own set of the Papers while swallowing his pride to have the Post produce articles based upon their rival's reporting.

The 'Times' was issued a court order to cease printing the Papers

The Pentagon Papers report, which had been commissioned by former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara , covered events from the presidencies of Harry Truman to Lyndon Johnson . Yet even though actions by Richard Nixon 's administration hadn't been exposed, the White House hated having this classified information brought to light.

Nixon and his team felt that the nation learning about government lies during the conflict in Vietnam could further erode public trust and support. In addition, there were worries that negotiations with the North Vietnamese could be undermined. Nixon also loathed the idea of leakers harming his administration (he didn't have a record of spotless conduct himself, having possibly interfered in peace talks prior to winning the presidency in 1968).

Attorney General John Mitchell told the Times that they were violating the Espionage Act and jeopardizing U.S. defense interests. When the paper refused to stop publishing, the government obtained a court order to bar further publication on June 15.

Printing the Papers could have jeopardized the future of the 'Post'

On June 16, Washington Post national editor Ben Bagdikian, who'd figured out the leaker was Daniel Ellsberg, went to Boston with the promise of getting his own copy of the Pentagon Papers. The next morning Bagdikian returned to Washington, D.C., with 4,400 photocopied pages (an incomplete set, as the original report was 7,000 pages). The photocopies got their own first-class seat on the return flight before being brought to Bradlee's house (where Bradlee’s daughter actually was selling lemonade outside). There, a team of editors and reporters began to study the documents and write articles.

However, the Post 's reporters and its legal team clashed: The Washington Post Company was in the middle of its first public stock offering (to the tune of $35 million), and being charged with a criminal offense could jeopardize this. In addition, the prospectus had stated that what the Post published was for the national good; sharing national secrets might be considered an abrogation of those terms.

Criminal charges would also mean the possibility of losing television station licenses worth about $100 million. And attorneys pointed out that the Post could be accused of violating the court order that had been issued against the Times , so their paper's legal jeopardy was potentially even higher than what the Times had initially faced.

Graham ignored the advice of the attorney

As the debate went on between editorial and legal, on June 17, Graham was hosting a party for a departing employee. In the middle of a heartfelt toast, she had to stop and take a phone call for an emergency consultation about whether or not to publish. Graham had become head of the Washington Post Company following her husband’s suicide in 1963, taking a job she'd never expected to hold in order to maintain family control of the paper. She’d overcome doubts and gained confidence in her position — enough to take the title of publisher in 1969 — but she’d never faced a choice like this one.

When Graham asked Washington Post Company Chairman Fritz Beebe, an attorney and trusted adviser, whether he would publish, he answered, "I guess I wouldn’t." Graham wondered if it was possible to delay publication, given how much was at risk, but Bradlee and other staff made it clear that the newsroom would object to any delay. Editorial head Phil Geyelin told Graham, "There’s more than one way to destroy a newspaper," meaning that the paper's morale would be devastated by not publishing.

Smaller papers, like the Boston Globe , were also getting ready to publish, and no one wanted the Post to be embarrassed by being left behind. In her memoir, Personal History (1997), Graham described her belief that the way Beebe had responded gave her an opening to ignore his advice. In the end, she told her team, "Let’s go. Let’s publish."

The government tried to stop the 'Post' from publishing the Papers

The first Washington Post article about the Pentagon Papers appeared on June 18. The Justice Department soon warned the paper that it had violated the Espionage Act and risked U.S. defense interests. Like the Times , the Post refused to stop publication, so the government proceeded to court. Publication was enjoined around 1 a.m. on June 19, but that day's edition was already being printed, so it did contain information about the Papers.

As the case wound its way through the court system, the government argued that national security and diplomatic relations had been put at risk by publication (though reporters were able to show that much of the information the government objected to was already public). At one point the Justice Department asked that the Post defendants not attend hearings due to security concerns, a request the judge refused to allow. Secrecy was maintained, however, with some proceedings held in rooms with blacked-out windows.

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the 'Post'

The Supreme Court decided to hear the Post and Times cases together on June 26. On June 30, the Supreme Court issued a 6-3 decision that supported the papers' right to publish, a victory for freedom of the press.

Publishing the Pentagon Papers not only increased the Washington Post 's national standing, but it also let the newsroom know that their publisher believed in freedom of the press enough to put everything at stake. This commitment would come in handy when reporters at the paper began looking into a break-in at the Watergate office complex, the beginning of an investigation that would bring down Richard Nixon's presidency (ironically, this break-in was conducted by a group of "plumbers" that Nixon had wanted to prevent leaks like the Pentagon Papers).

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Steven Spielberg's movie “The Post”

Please read the picture that I posted carefully and write a movie review from the move "The Post"