Articles with the Tag Lessons From History

Whistle-Blowers: A Conversation with Ellsberg and Dean

Lessons From History
Published on

Created on Monday, 14 June 2010 15:47

What lessons do the Vietnam War, Watergate, and the "War on Terror" offer about the abuse of power by the executive branch in times of national crisis?

Join Daniel Ellsberg, the RAND strategist whose leak of the Pentagon Papers helped bring down the Nixon presidency and end the Vietnam War, and John Dean, White House counsel to Nixon and later a key whistle-blower on the Watergate scandal, for a conversation about the perils — then and now — of presidential overreach and excessive secrecy.

The event, sponsored by the Open Society Institute National Security and Human Rights Campaign, comes on the eve of the U.S. premiere of the feature documentary The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. Filmmakers Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith present clips from the film.

Ann Beeson, executive director for U.S. Programs at the Open Society Institute and former associate legal director at the ACLU, moderates the discussion with Ellsberg and Dean.

 

Watergate And The Reputation Of Richard Nixon

Lessons From History
Published on

Created on Saturday, 08 January 2011 11:26

On May 28, 1972, five men broke into the Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. and were arrested while they were still in the building. American politics has never been the same since then. 

What seemed like a routine break-in was actually the tip of a mammoth political iceberg, which ran from the intelligence operatives to members of the White House staff and finally to President Nixon himself, a man whose mission to find dirt on his opponents led to his ultimate and extremely public downfall.

This Discovery Channel retrospective (produced in 1994) is, bar none, the most comprehensive, intelligent and exhaustive documentary you could ever find on the subject. Going far beyond a basic rehashing of the events, Watergate takes the viewer painstakingly through the entire scandal, from break-in to resignation. The documentary utilizes video footage, newspaper coverage, those infamous White House tapes, and most impressively, interviews with all the in 1994 still living participants in the Watergate scandal (with the exception of Henry Kissinger), some reading from their own notes.

It's amazing to hear the details of America's biggest political debacle straight from the horses' mouths–Haldeman, Erlichman, Liddy, John Dean, even Nixon himself via his 1977 interview with David Frost.

This is a 4 hour clear-eyed portrait of Watergate from the inside that covers this fascinating chapter of American history better than any other previous documentary with regard to this subject.

The Reputation Of Richard Nixon

 

‘The Most Dangerous Man in America’: Daniel Ellsberg And The Pentagon Papers

Lessons From History
Published on

Created on Monday, 21 June 2010 15:12

‘The Most Dangerous Man in America’ tells the story of Daniel Ellsberg, a high-level Pentagon official and Vietnam War strategist, who in 1971 concluded that the war in Vietnam was based on decades of lies. He consequently leaked 7,000 pages of top secret documents to The New York Times, making headlines around the world.

This is a riveting story of how this one man's profound change of heart created a landmark struggle involving America's newspapers, its President and Supreme Court. The documentary features Daniel Ellsberg, Patricia Ellsberg, Robert Ellsberg, Tony Russo, Howard Zinn, Hedrick Smith, John Dean and others, and, from the secret White House tapes, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger who called Ellsberg "The Most Dangerous Man in America".

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The Fog Of War – Eleven Lessons From The Life of Robert McNamara

The Secret Government

War Made Easy

 

Commanding Heights – The Battle For The World Economy

Lessons From History
Published on

Created on Saturday, 08 January 2011 11:08

Part I:  The Battle of Ideas

A global economy, energized by technological change and unprecedented flows of people and money, collapses in the wake of a terrorist attack. The year is 1914. Worldwide war results, exhausting the resources of the great powers and convincing many that the economic system itself is to blame. 

 

From the ashes of the catastrophe, an intellectual and political struggle ignites between the powers of government and the forces of the marketplace, each determined to reinvent the world’s economic order.

 

Part II:  The Agony Of Reform

As the 1980s begin and the Cold War grinds on, the existing world order appears firmly in place. Yet beneath the surface powerful currents are carving away at the economic foundations. Western democracies still struggle with deficits and inflation, while communism hides the failure of its command economy behind a facade of military might.

 

In Latin America populist dictators strive to thwart foreign economic exploitation, piling up debt and igniting hyperinflation in the process.

Part III:  The New Rules Of The Game

With communism discredited, more and more nations harness their fortunes to the global free-market. China, Southeast Asia, India, Eastern Europe, and Latin America all compete to attract the developed world’s investment capital and tariff barriers fall.

 

In the United States, Republican and Democratic administrations both embrace unfettered globalization over the objections of organized labor.