How many American adults can correctly identify 'Daniel Ellsberg'?

[Smarmie Doofus]

71. I'm a "political history nerd" also.

The McCarthy period ( the blacklist, HUAC, Roy Cohn, the Rosenbergs) has always fascinated me.... despite the fact that ( maybe BECAUSE OF the fact that..... these events took place *just* before I came on the scene. (McCarthy was censured in '54, I believe; the year I was born.) It's an area of EXTREME interest to me.

I don't know that there's much in your analysis though, that's relevant to my central point. My point is this: Watergate ( i.e. gov't malfeasance and its surveillance war against its own citizenry) whistleblowing ( personified by Ellsberg here; but reprised by the actions of Snowden and many ..... less celebrated.... others in this era), Viet Nam ( the US govt's determination to dominate --- and impose it's will on smaller, presumably "weaker" countries, because its elite sees a potential geopolitical and/or economic advantage in doing so.

A painful, continuous theme. What else is American foreign policy, except for that?

All of these things COME TOGETHER in the Ellsberg saga. He personifies and unifies these otherwise un-connectable phenomena. Graphically and dramatically. In a way people could relate to.

IF they knew who he was. He's not Patty Hearst, fer' gosh sakes.