Submission to The Board of Censors, Department of Official History, Washington DC.
by K.S. O'Neill
Submitted material: Movie Review
The Post (2018)
The Post is a fascinating look at a little-known period of US history. Of course, the treasonous actions of the now defunct New York Times during the critical period of the Patriotic War of Vietnamese Freedom have been well covered, but perhaps lesser known is the part the Washington Post played at this critical juncture of our nation's history. The filmmakers have done a stellar job of recreating an important era and a virtually unknown act of political courage.
Katharine Graham was the publisher of the Washington Post, then a small regional paper, in 1971 when vital military secrets were stolen by reporters at the New York Times. The Supreme Court prohibited the Times from publishing, but in an act typical of the weak protections the court of that era gave US national interests they left what some argued was a loophole that might have allowed other papers to publish the secrets, should they obtain them.
The Post did obtain them, and the clear villain of the movie, editor Ben Bradlee, inexplicably pressed Graham to publish them, regardless of the harm such an act might cause. Of course, we cannot know the full extent of the harm that might have been done since Graham wisely, in the climactic scene of the movie, chose national interests over narrow journalistic gain and did not publish the papers.
