Before he released the secret history of the Vietnam War and became the most renowned whistleblower of the 20th century, Daniel Ellsberg was a nuclear war planner. He not only spirited thousands of pages of the Pentagon Papers out of his safe at the RAND Corporation but also an equally damning treasure trove of nuclear secrets. Before he passed away in 2023, he spoke directly and passionately to camera about his deep regrets and specific proposals for controlling the Doomsday Machine. Ellsberg spent the last fifty years of his life working tirelessly against nuclear weapons and war. In the process, he was arrested over eighty times for civil disobedience. In this short documentary, Ellsberg lays out key facts about the planetary threat of nuclear war and talks about how to reduce the real and present risk of nuclear annihilation. An Ordinary Madness will both terrify and energize viewers.
Biography:
Judith Ehrlich co-produced and co-directed Oscar- and Emmy-nominated The Most Dangerous Man in America, Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers and The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight It, both ITVS documentaries. She is the only person to twice win the top history film award from both the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians.
