Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. '", "The scene where all of us receive this email and we're discussing the memo, that never happened. To this day, however, there has been barely a mention of the year I spent living under a cloud. And that's quite a depressing place to find yourself in when you feel so strongly and passionately about something. When you have the initial GCHQ induction course for new arrivals, she said, they tell you not to trust journalists, to be careful to keep everything confidential. Still, she printed off the memo, tucked it into her purse, and took it home. Because it's just an Executive Branch trying to grab power as an authoritarian. British Secret Service Officer Katharine, then a young bride, risked everything to leak details of the Bush-Blair plan to coerce (possibly blackmail) members of the UN Security Council in order to win their votes to legalize invading Iraq. But I know some folks because of films I made like Eye in the Sky, and before that I made a film called Rendition. WebGun was followed, denied legal advice and her Turkish husband faced deportation. And I think thats why you get this very honest, pure, deeply felt performance. As it was, a second UN resolution directly to authorise war against Iraq never materialised and air strikes began on 19 March 2003. She said to me, Gavin, I had no problem doing the work that involved a lot of listening in, in order to give information about trade negotiations, to give our country the advantage of trade negotiations when they go. Such a law is not compatible with openness, transparency, accountability and justice. He is wonderfully articulate but super pissed off, and his PTSDbecause hes been in Iraq for yearsmanifests at just disdain for that certain person you mentioned. And in her case, she risked both her job and her freedom and whatever you think of her politically, I think that takes some guts. As the working day came to close, I tried to project a sense of calm I didnt feel, walked out of the gates and put the incriminating email in the post. But depicting that climate, people who were not aware or active at that timedidn't realize how difficult this was to talk against the war both from the journalist's perspective and obviously someone who's in the intelligence community. Whether you work for Boeing or Enron or Wallstreet? Can dementia be spotted in CHILDHOOD? To me, it was a way of showing that Iraq cannot be dismissed as a horror show of suffering, but is an ancient and sophisticated culture that goes back thousands of years. I answered an advert in The Guardian newspaper for a translator. Her story, which reveals what a country will do when it wants war and claims it does not, is told in an updated book and a major motion picture soon to be released--Official Secrets (Keira Knightly is Katharine). WebYou may not know the name Katharine Gun unless you live in the United Kingdom, but she was a pivotal figure in the run-up to the Iraq War. The truth is that I didnt know who Katharine Gun was until my producer Ged Doherty called me up one day, we made Eye In The Sky together, and said, Have you ever heard of Katharine Gun? Thats one of those moments where you think: Sounds like I ought to have, but I hadnt. He runs a media charity. I was glad to get back to what I hoped would be normality, but the effect on me had been traumatising. And maybe if we went to work for Enron and we liked our job well enough, and its a job. So thats how the scene happened, but she didnt know where he was for three days, he was at Harmonsworth, before she got him out. After the charges against her were dropped in 2004, she found it difficult to find a new His most recent book is Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power.. Iran has been filmed loading missiles aboard some of its vessels. She was charged WebWhistleblower Katherine Gun, right, is played by Keira Knightly in the movie Official Secrets View gallery Gun was outraged after she learned - as part of her job with GCHQ - that When Official Secrets received its British premiere at Londons BFI Film Festival earlier this month, I was determined to wear something that held a special meaning and settled on a dress by an Iraqi designer. We even got as far as the Old Bailey. It is to say that we need to know the truth behind the decisions to act or not to act. Although the story made headlines around the world at the time of the leak and later at the time of her trial, which collapsed after the prosecution withdrew its evidence, it remains largely missing from the official narratives of the build-up to the Iraq war. It remains entirely to the credit of Roger Alton, at the time the paper's editor, that he stuck with the story, despite its potential implications. She got into a plea bargain, they still gave her five years. So Im very proud of Keiras performance and I dont mind that she doesnt have blonde hair. Powerful Commons committee could look at case for banning stoves in towns and Love Island hit by hundreds of Ofcom complaints from furious viewers over 'toxic femininity' row and Movie As easy as buying a loaf of bread: Undercover footage reveals how laughing gas is being sold from local Could Northern Ireland become the UK's Silicon Valley? WebKatharine Gun was a young specialist working for Britains Government Communications Headquarters when she exposed a highly confidential memo that revealed the United Our institutions matter. Was the British government aware of it? I grew up in South Africa in the seventies and eighties, when apartheid was really tightening and tightening and tightening. Gun, a translator with the British intelligence service known as Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), received a document just before the war from an NSA manager, seeking British intelligence support in spying on members of the UN Security Council, to effectively blackmail them into voting for a second resolution that would make legal the invasion of Iraq. Keira calmly said: Oh, that was probably me. I still blush to the tips of my toes when I think about it. "I think part of the reason Gavin included it was just to kind of share that thought process.". KatharineGun did not stop the war,but was it all entirely in vain? You can look up Nicole Mowbray, she wrote an article in The Guardian a couple weeks ago, about this worst day of her life. Yet to this day there has been barely a mention of the Bush regimes disgraceful demand in official histories of the period, as if its been deliberately written out. Katharine Gun, a shy and studious 28-year-old who spent her days listening in to obscure Chinese intercepts, decided to tell the world about a secret plan by the US government to spy on the, Don't mention the Iraq war, William Hague tells cabinet, Tenyears on, the case for invading Iraq is still valid, Occupying Iraq: a US army veteran's ambivalence, Howthe Bush administration sold the war and we bought it, the story the paper published 10 years ago this weekend, was arrested, lost her job and faced trial under the Official Secrets Act, collapsed after the prosecution withdrew its evidence. Give today. This is a story about my life and my leak after all, and I still believe in the issues passionately. After a police interview, at which I repeated my admission, I was released on bail to await the decision of the Crown Prosecution Service. She thought wow, they need a Mandarin translator at GCHQ. Is this a matter of threatening to launch a war, or is it a matter of responding to the US positioning itself for war? This is my second brief moment of fame. Quality journalism. The movie tells the story of Katharine Gun (played by Keira Knightley), a translator with the U.K.'s GCHQ who, in 2003, leaked top secret documents to journalist Martin Bright (Matt Smith) that revealed that the American government's plans to apply pressure on members of the U.N. Security Counsel to pass its war resolution. Then, we all started watching the invasion and we werent how we got into the war. She's based (and born and raised) in Brooklyn, New York. Now there is the possibility that Gun's singular life will be made into a movie. WebGun sacrificed so much when she decided to leak and has worked only intermittently since. [Gun's husband Yasar, a Kurd, was nearly deported back to the Middle East at one point, even though he had nothing to do with the leak.]. This is a special case because this story is very little-known in the United States. Now someone else may beI don't know if I could hack people's phones and computers, personally. Questioner: The only thing that I've wondered while watching the film, since it's a true story, is how could Ms. Gunn, who was a spy, who was a member of an intelligence agency, be surprised when her husband got deportedor when the government came after her husband, how could she be surprised when all of the different reactions she got came forward? The increasing presence of US Navy ships and a B-52 bomber task force in their neighborhood might provoke the Iranians to load up their missiles. I sensed a slight flash of anger as she said: "It's not even a footnote in the history of Iraq." Perhaps they knew it would come out in the courtroom that the entire conflict was based on lies about Saddams weapons of mass destruction and that key UN officials could have been blackmailed. This and her other writings about intelligence issues have been critically acclaimed. Would you risk your job? And it was this book which eventually became the script for Official Secrets. However, when her friends start being interrogated about the leak, Gun confesses to being the whistleblower, leading to her being arrested and taken to court for breaching the Official Secrets Act. But I do want to give her credit that I think I didn't do her justice enough in the moment that she leaked that memo; it changed so quickly to war that we don't really get a moment to absorb the fact that as a result of her leaking that memo, there was no vote at the UN Security Council. "We started wondering whether we should do the blonde hair and the glasses and wondering about prosthetics, but one point Keira said to me, 'You know, the last thing I want is the audience to say, 'Oh, I don't know if I like her blonde,'" said Hood. It was the first time I had worked with characters who were still alive, and they very much wanted it to be accurate or they wouldn't sign over their life rights. Katharine Gun, a British former government employee, faced two years imprisonment in England for the crime of telling the truth. She was horrified and leaked the email to the Observer. Yet I do think Keira perfectly captures the strain I was under, the isolation and fear. And she thought she wouldnt get caught. Do you go vote? The editorial position should never be that. Gun discusses her attempt to stop the Iraq War, which is the subject of the new movie Official Secrets. "Financially it's the toughest," she said. The spin in this country and in the UK was the threat of deadly weapons ready to be deployed by Saddam. Naturally, I was discreet. What do you think resonates? Had the film appeared any earlier, however, I dont think Id have been able to watch it, let alone help the makers. Hood said that this was a purposeful choice by Knightley. Seven times I've submitted articles to you with an alternate point of view, and seven times you've turned me down. Who knows whether they would've bent those other nations to vote for a resolution. In the matter of a few years. Official Secrets Trailer #1 (2019) | Movieclips Trailers, Imagine Donald Trump Running an Actual War. ", Hood added: "You know, to this day, I mean, the real journalistic question is, who would like to go and really press Lord Goldsmith and Ken McDonald for the reasons why they really dropped their case? As a result of the story the paper published 10 years ago this weekend, she was arrested, lost her job and faced trial under the Official Secrets Act. ", As for her own story, she recognises that 10 years on it scarcely registers with the public. It was both exhilarating and just a little uncomfortable. And I thought this is going to end in the worst civil war. Did that change your approach to presenting the film knowing that this was actually going to be somewhat of a surprise to people? As I walked down the red carpet, I had never in my life experienced the flash of so many cameras. the waning support for public institutions today. Its Straussian, over the top and pretentious but basically amounts to this. ", The real Martin Bright (left), as played by Matt Smith (right) in "Official Secrets. WebHer husband, Yaar Gn, is a Turkish Kurd. So we're in this development meeting, and the executive looks at me and goes, Gavin, I mean we need her running down alleys more, someone needs to throw a brick through her damn window, and when does she don her cape? It was literally the line. Instead, the American coalition was forced to stake its claim to a legal invasion on grounds of self defense, including now-infamously untrue claims about weapons of mass destruction. I was suddenly free and bewildered. A script has been doing the rounds in Hollywood for five years. There's an obvious scene of the immigration deportation. They failed. But any such illusions were shattered on the freezing cold morning of Friday, January 31, 2003, as I read and re-read the most extraordinary email from Americas intelligence service, the National Security Agency. Gun said that the UK government still had some explaining to do: "I thinkthere need to be more questions asked about whether they responded to that request, why they felt it was within their scope of work to respond to that sort of request, and what is the manner of the relationship between UK politics and US politics. David Dayen: I want to go to the questions now. For me as a journalist who was really getting started around that time, this climate of fear that was in place in the United States and also in the UK. Because it was toughthe guy wouldnt print his stuff. "You get to the end, and there's this court case. But this specificinstance is the ugly truth of what goes on.". I was arrested for a breach of section one of the Official Secrets Act 1989 and held overnight in a cell in the basement of the Cheltenham Police headquarters. And Assange is the same. I dont know if theyd have discovered me eventually, but the fact is I couldnt live a lie for ever. The contents were explosive, implicating America in a blackmail plot to swing UN votes in favor of an invasion. I didnt know the story and I googled her. Throughout her own court case, what only a few knew was that she was also fighting for These superheroes, and I don't just mean superheroes in the movie sense, but larger-than-life big political figures, or Edward Snowden is almost mythical in his brilliance whether you like what he did or not, he is sort of not me. A thorough investigation began as soon as the staff started arriving at GCHQ on the Monday morning. However, Gun added that this was nothing on the anxiety she felt when the memo she had leaked ended up on the front page of The Observer, which she called "the most stressful memo of my life. Rishi Sunak is urgently reviewing his private exchanges with Matt Hancock after bombshell leak of ex-Health 'Drinks cold in fridge at DH!' Photograph: Andy Hall for the Observer, en years ago, a young Mandarin specialist at GCHQ, the government's surveillance centre in Cheltenham, did something extraordinary. President Bush visits the National Security Agency in Fort Meade, Maryland, January 25, 2006. One by one, all those who received the email approximately 100 people were taken in for a grilling. None of the Government reports into the war acknowledged it, nor did the history books. What It Feels Liketo Survive a Chemical Attack. Does your loyalty lie to your own conscious, does your loyalty lie to your marriage, does your loyalty lie to your government, does your loyalty lie to your country? The British are quite British, you know. For several years, just recalling the events would set my heart racing and my hands trembling. I was called on to look this way and that and smile until my face was stiff. Katharine Gun and Martin Bright could be forgiven for fielding Hollywoods overtures with a degree of skepticism. Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads. They're more polite to their suspects. The risks Gun took in revealing the UN email's existence were huge. Right now my priorities are to ensure I am there for my daughter.". You might say I am biased. Theyre talking about diplomatic negotiations, and having all the cards on the table, but behind that what theyre doing is trying to bribe UN diplomatic members to vote for a war which has no legal justifications, Gun says. You have the UN resolution, we're all doing this together to stop the genocide or something, or it's self-defense, we're going to be attacked, it's so clear we're going to be attacked that we have to take pre-emptive action. What resonates to me is the somewhat more, I hope, timeless thing. We have a blondish-looking Katharine. Gun sacrificed so much when she decided to leak and has worked only intermittently since. One is reminded of the January 31, 2003 Oval Office meeting with George Bush, Tony Blair, and Condoleeza Rice, in which the topic of provoking Iraq to start a war was particularly revealing. Abandoned blue sleeping bag, tents and several wooden shelters are found in woodland close to where police Don't just stick to the Malbec! That's really the simplest question: When do you speak up? So she went along to this interview, and she was 28. When my moment came, I found myself standing alone in the dock facing the judge and surrounded by lawyers, journalists and supporters. In one pivotal scene in the film, all of Gun and Bright's work is nearly undone by one mistake, as a member of The Observer team accidentally changed the American spelling of the memo into British spelling, something The Drudge Report then used to discredit the memo. Jeb Bush Just Botched the Iraq Question. But there's no way I would have expressed that to any of my colleagues," Gun explained. She hoped that if people know about the lengths to which theyve gone to legitimize an invasion of Iraq, then it would blow apart, and people will suddenly think, No, this isnt right, and the whole house of cards would come tumbling down.. As a result, there never was any second UN resolution. Whatever, she blew the whistle ultimately revealing the truth behind the build-up to the Iraq War--regime change, disguised as terrifying threats of weapons of mass destruction. I admitted the leak and my life was turned upside down. ", Left: Dave Benett/Getty. Interestingly I think we faced a challenge, which some of you may or may not agree with. So, Im not really answering your question well, but her feeling was just: Now I dont belong in this company. She had received an email in her inbox asking her and her colleagues to help in a vast intelligence "surge" designed to secure a UN resolution to send troops into Iraq. WebAnd they failed, in part, I believe, because Katharine Gun leaked that memo, Official Secrets director Gavin Hood told Democracy Now!. And if, 16 years ago, you had told me that one day my life story would be portrayed by Keira Knightley, Id have laughed and changed the subject. However, her husband and the father of her daughters name is Yasar Gun. Gabrielle Bruney is a writer and editor for Esquire, where she focuses on politics and culture. The other was Coleen Rowley, former FBI special agent and counsel at the Minneapolis bureau, who blew the whistle on FBI and other shortcomings Anyway, the Office of Special Plans and Abram Shulsky make an interesting Wikipedia read, it won't take you very long. WebGun, then 28, received an email about a U.S.-led operation enlisting the help of Britain to spy on other countries, in an attempt to blackmail them into supporting the Iraq War. But my point is simply this: The underpinnings of this country matter. Do you vote, do you analyze who you should vote for or do you just take it for granted? So there is sometimes a thought in my head that says: What if Katharine hadn't leaked that memo? As of 2020 Gun lives in Turkey and Britain. I've seen that happen. Im gratified, too, that the film shows the love and support my husband gave me throughout this ordeal. The work shed signed up to do was covered by British law, and would be something to do with whatever that was necessary to keep British lives safe. The memo, however represented the actual twisting of diplomatic arms in order to secure a war which [was] based on lies., But it also represented an opportunity to show the world the tactics American and British officials were willing to employ in their push for an invasion. "One of the things that we discovered quite early on when he was interviewing me was that a lot of stuff was just happening in my head. Iran, meanwhile, says it doesn't want war, but will defend itself. But she still was not uncomfortable with the other things we've talked about. He said she didnt even know what the job was. A transcript, lightly edited with explainers where necessary, follows. She could easily have been me or you at your place of work, where something comes across your desk and you go, This doesn't smell right. Does anyone have any questions? As one of the journalists who broke the story, I feel a certain responsibility for how things have turned out. He is just way out there in a whole other realm. My job had been to listen to Chinese communications, translate them from Mandarin to English and produce reports for different government departments. Jack Straw, then the foreign secretary, has not been challenged on whether he authorised the operation to go ahead, although it is almost certain that he did. The days and weeks dragged agonisingly by. He said: "Very close. During the American-lead 2003 campaign for United Nations support for an invasion of Iraq, Gun, who's played in the film by Keira Knightley, was a 28 year-old Mandarin translator working for the UKs Government Communications Headquarters, the nations equivalent of the American NSA. Whistleblower Katherine Gun, right, is played by Keira Knightly in the movie Official Secrets, Gun was outraged after she learned - as part of her job with GCHQ - that the United States wanted Britain to assist in spying on fellow United Nations Security Council members to win a vote in favour of a planned war in Iraq. If there had been a UN resolution, there would have been no need to make a WMD argument because there are two legal ways to go to war. In fact, I had no idea what was going on. Enter Katharine Gun. But she said she would still be prepared to give evidence to the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war. Never mind that invading another country for the purpose of regime change is illegal according to international laws to which the United States is a signatory. It was written in technical language, but the meaning was clear enough: the Americans were asking around 100 people in GCHQ to gather information from the communications made by diplomats from six nations Angola, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Chile, Guinea and Pakistan all which were then sitting on the United Nations Security Council. Please, become a member, or make a one-time donation, today. We must not be flummoxed by exaggerated claims of threats against America and our interests. It was only later in the green room that I asked what all the fuss had been about, wondering aloud if it had been the environmental protest group Extinction Rebellion. What happened to Gun afterwards forms the basis of the film Official Secrets, which opened in New York and Los Angeles earlier this month and goes into wider release today. So, that's where we had to go for WMD. "Obviously, we are compressing a story that took place in real life over a period of a year into two hours. Then the most almighty cacophony erupted, a roar so loud we could barely hear to speak. To legitimize an invasion and get rid of Saddam, a new UN Security Council resolution, going beyond SC1441 and specifically sanctioning the invasion, was the answer. We need another Katharine Gun. "On the one hand, she's free. Gavin Hood: After the spellcheck. It turned out a copyeditor at The Observer had run the memo through spellcheck before printing it.]. For the Observer too, it was a story full of risks. We may earn a commission from these links. Copyright 2023 | The American Prospect, Inc. | All Rights Reserved, The Alt-Labor Chronicles: Americas Worker Centers, Official Secrets: A Conversation With Director Gavin Hood. So right there, you are pulling out the highlights," said Hood of the key issue with making Official Secrets. I could put a lens on, and now my job is, this actress is doing great work, lets not get tricky, lets just get the audience into her eyes so that you could see those cogs moving. And they failed, in part, I believe, because Katharine Gun leaked that memo, Official Secrets director Gavin Hood told Democracy Now!. The point of all of this is painfully obvious. Later, she gave the document to a friend, who passed it onto a contact in the anti-war movement, until it finally landed with journalists Martin Bright and Ed Vulliamy The Observer. To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page. She said, I was naive. Its had far reaching and very negative impacts in all aspects of our institutions and our public life," Gun says. It was like a neon sign that was flashing at me, Gun says. This is not to say that Iran does not have a trick up its sleeve, or that wild-eyed Iranian hawks aren't circling its leaders. I never thought Id be choosing a dress for a red carpet appearance at a major film festival. Throughout her own court case, whatonly a few knew wasthat she was also fighting for the right of her husband, who is from Turkey, to remain in the UK. Katharine Gun, former intelligence specialist turned whistleblower, discusses the new film "Official Secrets" which details why she leaked a classified memo. Weve said it before: The greatest threat to democracy from the media isnt disinformation, its the paywall. Amazing lady, shes still a journalist. It was what I was thinking, what I was feeling. So, to find that it would be dramatised on the big screen was as wonderfully welcome as it was astonishing. So WMD may not have been as important, had they gotten that resolution. Times have often been tough, not least because of the itinerant life she has chosen for herself. Marcia Mitchell is a writer, researcher, and the author of "The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War: Katharine Gun and the Secret Plot to Sanction the Iraq Invasion." Gavin Hood: And that really happened. Perhaps they don't trust him to keep his word. She wasnt charged for eight months a gruelling period which is depicted as just a few Truth and accountability were drilled into me as a child. The memo from Frank Koza, chief of staff at the "regional targets" section of the National Security Agency, GCHQ's sister organisation in the US, remains shocking in its implications for British sovereignty. They live on a smallholding, renting a house, in rural Turkey. She said, I worry what's going to happen, they'll go, Ooh, I don't know if I like Keira Knightly in blonde hair, what's she done to her nose, does she have glasses on? Because they don't have a comparison to make, until you see her at the end of the movie. You work for the government. Last week in Los Angeles, I got to interview the director, South African-born Gavin Hood, after a screening. Six months later they released Nelson Mandela. The central issues of whistle-blower protection, public interest disclosures, journalistic freedom and the accountability of our elected representatives continue to be just as relevant today. I didnt know until I looked really deeply into this that theres really two schools of thought. "But the more I think about what happened, the more angry and frustrated I get about the fact that nobody acted on intelligence. She still was not uncomfortable with the public this way and that 's quite a depressing place to that... America and our interests moments where you think: Sounds like I ought have... I didnt know the truth behind the decisions to act is not compatible with openness, transparency, and... Must not be flummoxed by exaggerated claims of threats against America and our interests but my is... 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