Changes

<i>The Post</i> is a historical drama that depicts the publication of the <i>Pentagon Papers</i> that detailed thirty years of involvement by the United States in Vietnam. These documents had the effect of increased hostility to the war, as they demonstrated a negative view of the war by the US government at a time when the government gave a more positive view and increased the war effort. The film focuses on the publication of the papers and Katharine Graham, who was the first female publisher of a major US newspaper.

The film begins in 1966 when then Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on a flight home from Vietnam expresses a negative view of the war effort in Vietnam and how it cannot be won. However, after arriving back in the US, McNamara gives a glowing review of the war effort. Daniel Ellsberg had gone with McNamara as part of a Pentagon review of the war effort, where Ellsberg had worked for the RAND Corporation in charge of the review. Ellsberg was dismayed while the government portrayed a different perception to the public out of fear for political fallout if the war effort failed.<ref>For more on the role of Ellsberg in the <i>Pentagon Papers</i>, see: Ellsberg, D. (2003). <i>Secrets: a memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon papers</i>. New York: Penguin Books. </ref>