Hedrick Smith

"The Most Dangerous Man in America" is the story of what happens when a former Pentagon insider, armed only with his conscience, steadfast determination, and a file cabinet full of classified documents, decides to challenge an "imperial" presidency – answerable to neither Congress, the press, nor the people – in order to help end the Vietnam War.

Frontline correspondent Hedrick Smith, the award-winning host of “Inside Gorbachev’s USSR,” revisits the former Soviet Union to investigate how the institutions and people he filmed for his 1990 series are dealing with the challenge of change. Smith finds a nation enjoying new freedoms of speech and conscience but on the brink of economic and political disaster.

As the documentary “Tax Me If You Can” explored, the tax shelter became one of corporate America’s biggest hidden profit centers in the 1990s and early 2000s. The General Accounting Office estimated that bogus tax shelters at the time cost the government more than $85 billion. Correspondent Hedrick Smith spoke with government officials, tax experts and industry insiders to expose these tax shelters. His reporting led him to some unexpected places — from the city of Dortmund, Germany, to the Cayman Islands. The documentary examined how difficult it was for the Internal Revenue Service to find tax shelters and how the tax shelter wave prompted a federal investigation. The ultimate victim in this scheme, experts in the documentary said, is the honest taxpayer who is left to make up what companies aren’t paying.

Acclaimed interviewer and Emmy-winning journalist Charlie Rose engages a wide range of guests, including philosophers, writers, politicians, athletes, entertainers, artists, business leaders, scientists, educators, and other newsmakers in one-on-one interviews and round-table discussions.