Produced by LA Theatre Works in partnership with New York Theatre Workshop and Affinity Collaborative Theatre, Leory Aarons and Geoffrey Cowan‘s Top Secret: The Battle for the Pentagon Papers, closed with rave reviews and an impressive model for using theater to explore and discuss the role of media in a democracy. The USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership & Policy organized conversations focused on the tension between issues of national security and a free press that included journalists, scholars, jurists, and public policy leaders from partner organizations such as Human Rights Watch, Columbia Journalism Review, New York University, and others.
The thirteen-part discussion series, titled Top Secret Talks, explored the many themes and issues embedded in Aarons and Cowan’s theatrical docudrama. The play asks an enduring question: In a democratic society, when and how long, if ever, should a government be allowed to keep secrets in the name of national security?
Top Secret: The Battle for the Pentagon Papers provided a dramatic look at the Washington Post‘s decision to publish information from the classified study documenting U.S. involvement in Vietnam after a federal court had shut down publication by The New York Times. The ensuing court battle over the potential national security threat posed by publication tested the parameters of the First Amendment and focused a spotlight on the conflict between government and the press. The epic legal battle went to the nation’s highest court – arguably the most important Supreme Court case ever on freedom of the press.
Individual programs were presented by organizations such as Columbia Journalism Review, Human Rights Watch, NYU’s Wagner School of Public Service, Asia Society, the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU and the Center for Public Integrity. Speakers included Daniel Ellsberg, the former Defense and State Department official who gave the Pentagon Papers to the Washington Post; legendary Washington Post investigative reporter Carl Bernstein; Leslie Gelb, who led the Department of Defense project that produced the Pentagon Papers; New York Times Managing Editor Jill Abramson; Washington Post editor Marcus Brauchli; and playwright Geoffrey Cowan; among others.
In addition to maintaining a dynamic blog documenting the discussion series, CCLP Media Fellow Lauren Popper Ellis is authoring a forthcoming report describing the success of Top Secret Talks and the way in which CCLP explored themes, highlighted issues and engaged audiences through theater.