A screen writer, Greenberg invented what he called the “theater of fact” — what is better known as the “docudrama”: documentary-like dramatizations of historical events. His first was 1973’s Pueblo, about the capture of an American spy ship off North Korea. Better known was 1974’s The Missiles of October, about the 13-day Cuban Missile Crisis.
“If the only purpose of historical drama is to record history, to be illustrated textbooks, then there is no reason to dramatize the material,” Greenberg once said. “It is better to do them as straight documentaries. But once you get into the human dimension, once you get into the idea of the individual as a hero who is bound by some kind of moral or ethical code, then you have to dramatize it.”
He also wrote the teleplay for Blind Ambition, the 1979 story of the Watergate scandal based on John Dean’s book, and the screenplay for 1973’s Soylent Green. Greenberg died at home on August 25 from a brain tumor. He was 74.