KBIA to Broadcast Pentagon Papers play

By Brad Fischer

Published Feb. 5, 2008

For two hours Saturday night, Jesse Auditorium became one of the foremost battlegrounds for the furthering of the freedom of the press.

L.A. Theater Works performed a live audio play, “Top Secret: The Battle for the Pentagon Papers” based on The Washington Post’s real-life decision-making process on whether or not to print information from a leaked top secret report on the Vietnam War and the subsequent court battle with the federal government.

The performance, part of the University Concert Series, was recorded live. It is scheduled to air, including audience reactions, at 2 p.m. on March 9 on KBIA/91.3 FM. The station is a National Public Radio affiliate owned by MU.

KBIA programming director John Bailey said he thought the live performance was very interesting to watch. Bailey said this is the second time the station will broadcast a live audio theater production.

“Radio theater is a pretty rare thing these days,” Bailey said. “Historically, it is something realized in a studio. Usually we don’t have audience participation in anyway shaping the final product. It is a rare and pretty cool thing.”

The stage was set with several microphones on stands near the front. On the back of the stage, an actor sat at a desk with a microphone and made sound effects to go along with the action in the script, such as turning keys in a lock when the script called for a door to be locked.

After the performance, the actors and MU journalism professor Charles Davis participated in a question and answer session with the audience, moderated by Bailey. Davis is the executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition, based at MU, which serves to promote the freedom of the press and the public’s right to an open government.

“I think the Pentagon Papers, with its themes of secrecy and executive privilege to cover up bungled intelligence gathering and military strategy has obvious parallels for today’s news media landscape,” Davis stated in an e-mail. “In the Pentagon Papers, an independent press had one of its finest moments — standing up to an administration driven by paranoid secrecy — and the nation as a whole benefited. Today the news media stands accused of having largely bungled Iraq and is attempting to regain its tenacity after having been the target of a rather relentless vilification from the left and right.”

University of Southern California professor Geoffrey Cowan and former Washington Post employee Leroy Aarons wrote the play. Aarons worked at The Washington Post throughout the time of the Pentagon Papers trials.