I don't think she thought they would deport her husband, I really don't think she thought that. ", As for her own story, she recognises that 10 years on it scarcely registers with the public. WebKatharine Gun (ne Harwood), 47, is married to Yasar Gn, a Turkish Kurd, with whom she has a 13-year old daughter. So it was a pretty awful thing to happen to her. Truth about Covid care home testing row: Timeline lays bare what was said, by who and when. 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. Copyright 2023 | The American Prospect, Inc. | All Rights Reserved, The Alt-Labor Chronicles: Americas Worker Centers, Official Secrets: A Conversation With Director Gavin Hood. 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. WebKatharine Gun was a young specialist working for Britains Government Communications Headquarters when she exposed a highly confidential memo that revealed the United I know what it is like to watch the system become completely authoritarian. Its Straussian, over the top and pretentious but basically amounts to this. 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. To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page. 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.. There it was spotted by Debs Paterson, director of the critically acclaimed Africa United, who met Katharine Gun last week with a view to making the film of her life. ", Left: Dave Benett/Getty. Over the weekend, I got to work. When do the clocks change in 2023? Then the story went ", Keira Knightley and Katharine Gun at the London premiere of "Official Secrets. Warning: The following contains spoilers for Official Secrets. There's an obvious scene of the immigration deportation. The spin in this country and in the UK was the threat of deadly weapons ready to be deployed by Saddam. I did feel like, Well, I failed.. It is to say that a government, for its own reasons may, either by design or through miscalculation, lead a country into an unnecessary and brutal war. As the Trump administration shreds norms of American governance like a Shih Tzu going to town on a roll of toilet paper, the last worst president is largely silent, busied with .css-umdwtv{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:.0625rem;text-decoration-color:#FF3A30;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:inherit;-webkit-transition:background 0.4s;transition:background 0.4s;background:linear-gradient(#ffffff, #ffffff 50%, #d5dbe3 50%, #d5dbe3);-webkit-background-size:100% 200%;background-size:100% 200%;}.css-umdwtv:hover{color:#000000;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;-webkit-background-position:100% 100%;background-position:100% 100%;}canine portraiture and now the subject of nearly fond nostalgia. But she said she would still be prepared to give evidence to the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war. But when Gun's lawyers threaten to question the U.K. Attorney General Lord Goldsmith about Britain's involvement in the Iraq war, the government drops their case against Gun. David Dayen: As someone who works on a magazine, it's the ultimate copyediting failure. Eventually, it was widely held that at least one of the reports of the attacks, and perhaps even both, were false. She said, I was naive. Sound familiar? I am an American citizen; I have a strange accent but Ive been here 25 years; my kids were born here. Donald Trump also is saying he doesn't want war, which is probably true. I don't think I've ever met a more determined character and she remained utterly convinced of the justice of her cause: "There's nothing subsequent to the invasion that makes me think it was the right decision made by Bush and Blair." This, despite credible evidence that Iran was in full compliance with terms of the agreement. That would be awkward. According to the Guardian, We are no longer accepting comments on this article. 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 United Nations. WebKatharine Gun, as passionately embodied here by Knightley, skews too noble to be particularly interesting, and the film is weakest when its focused on her and her husband She's based (and born and raised) in Brooklyn, New York. In the runup to the critical vote on war in Iraq, Katharine Gun exposed a US plot to spy on the UN. 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His exact words to describe the intelligence method is, The goal of the intelligence is not the truth, but victory. That is a quote from Shulsky. 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. Katharine Gun, former intelligence specialist turned whistleblower, discusses the new film "Official Secrets" which details why she leaked a classified memo. And she and many in her world knew, and many in the CIA knew, as Mel Goodman who's the man in the boathouse in Washington knew, that this was B.S. Supported by Liberty, the prominent British civil-rights campaigning organiza-tion, Gun and her lawyer, Ben Emmerson (Ralph Fiennes), decided to cite grounds of necessity in order to contest the charges laid against her. The real-life Gun said: "The attempt at deportation kind of spiked my stress level again for another period of my life." Unfortunately, perhaps, I have a conscience and my dishonesty gnawed at me persistently until the next day, when I confessed. WebGun was followed, denied legal advice and her Turkish husband faced deportation. And I did the same for the journalists and the lawyers and everybody. This whole intelligence didn't match what the politicians were saying. Would you risk your job? At some point, as you probably know, Bush and Rumsfeld decided to bypass the CIA and take out that Office of Special Plans. An insider with courage. Was the British government aware of it? The point of all of this is painfully obvious. And he kept thinking, 'How am I going to portray this? And people do this in every country; they spy, they listen to what are the Chinese going to do when they get to this conference. And she said, Yep, I have no problem being asked to listen in, in instances where I might help prevent a terror attack. What this memo suggested was neither of those things it was a bridge too far for her. ", 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? Yet here was a story that had the capacity to derail the war altogether. WebHer late husband, Tom, a former special agent of the FBI and one-time head of counter-intelligence in New York, co-authored the Gun story. 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. Who, one must ask, is provoking whom? She didnt know where he was for three days and she took the train down from Charlton to London to see the MP, Nigel Jones, who said exactly what he says in the movie. They failed. And it's not an easy question, it sounds easy, but I don't think it is. Neither my friends nor my family knew what I did all day. Look at what happened to Reality Winner in this country. Even though she didn't stop the war and some people are like what's the point if she didn't stop the warwell, the point is how do you sleep at night? 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. And the reason? [In real life] I saw the email, I immediately thought, 'Oh, my God, this is shocking.' So we just worked on the performance from the very what if it's you? A transcript, lightly edited with explainers where necessary, follows. The true story of a British whistleblower who leaked information to the press about an illegal NSA spy operation designed to push the UN Security Council into sanctioning the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The story went around the world and the leak electrified the international debate during the weeks of diplomatic deadlock. To separate fact from fiction, Newsweek spoke to the real Gun and Bright, as well as Official Secrets director Gavin Hood. We need a truth-sayer. By Katharine Gun, Gchq Whistleblower For The Mail On Sunday, Published: 22:33 GMT, 26 October 2019 | Updated: 16:47 GMT, 8 November 2019. So we start with hair, and then we start with glasses, and Keira says, "Gavin, what if I just was me?" Direct to your inbox. WebAttempts were made by the authorities to deport her husband, who grew disillusioned with Britain. Despite the millions affected by the Iraq War, its now far removed from British and American news cycles, displaced from the headlines by todays political turmoil. 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. Anyway, the Office of Special Plans and Abram Shulsky make an interesting Wikipedia read, it won't take you very long. Director Gavin Hood Writers Sara Bernstein Gregory Bernstein Gavin Hood Stars Keira Knightley Matt Smith Matthew Goode So WMD may not have been as important, had they gotten that resolution. Naturally, I was discreet. So Im very proud of Keiras performance and I dont mind that she doesnt have blonde hair. The poor woman is based on a real person. In real life, "the spellcheck largely happened through a series of phone calls," according to Bright, "because on a Sunday newspaper we don't work on a Sunday, and we don't work on a Monday. This included a particular focus on the "swing nations" on the security council, Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria and Guinea, "as well as extra focus on Pakistan UN matters". 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. ", Join half a million readers enjoying Newsweek's free newsletters, Keira Knightley's Birthday: Her 15 Best Movies Ranked, In the film, when Gun is sent an email from someone high up in the U.S. government that reveals the U.S. covert plan, she decides to leak it to Bright, who works for the British newspaper, Keira Knightley as Katharine Gun in "Official Secrets. He is just way out there in a whole other realm. Healthy mother-of-two, 32, collapsed and died from brain bleed while she led fitness bounce class. WebWhen the film opens, Gun (Keira Knightley) is happily married to Yasar (Adam Bakri), a Turkish national living in the UK on a temporary visa, and passionately invested in So, to find that it would be dramatised on the big screen was as wonderfully welcome as it was astonishing. 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. Iraq All Over Again? 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. 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. I was only a junior analyst, but I knew the email was outrageous: the American government was asking Britain to spy on United Nations diplomats so they could be blackmailed into supporting an invasion of Iraq. Gavin Hood: Thats such an interesting statement, I mean, I just took it at face value that papers take an editorial position, but youre right. 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. In the matter of a few years. But she still was not uncomfortable with the other things we've talked about. But, did it change the way I approached it? "That really happened," Hood confirmed, though it did not go quite as it is shown in the film. Cheering crowds have never been my sort of thing. So there is sometimes a thought in my head that says: What if Katharine hadn't leaked that memo? Perhaps a plane painted in UN colors could be shot down over Iraq. And I know whose throat it really sticks in, is [British journalist] Ed Vulliamy, who I adore. Actually, there were two incidents at sea, blamed originally on the North Vietnamese. 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. And it's a tough profession in many ways. Gun discusses her attempt to stop the Iraq War, which is the subject of the new movie Official Secrets. Then, we all started watching the invasion and we werent how we got into the war. 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. However, her husband and the father of her daughters name is Yasar Gun. It gives me an interesting pause. 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. She had been following that war, as many of us had, for a year. "On the one hand, she's free. WebGun sacrificed so much when she decided to leak and has worked only intermittently since. 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. The more we find out that in fact the million-person march was a real cause of worry for Downing Street and for Blair personally, it makes you think we were so close and yet so far.". It sounds big with Katharine but that's what inspired me. Does anyone have any questions? the waning support for public institutions today. Exaggerating threats to provoke a war? You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. As a result, there never was any second UN resolution. Not mine or The Observer's finest hour, has to be said. Because it's just an Executive Branch trying to grab power as an authoritarian. She wasnt planning to get caught and then the dilemma was, My friends are all going to have their lives ruined.. Do you go vote? Rishi Sunak is urgently reviewing his private exchanges with Matt Hancock after bombshell leak of ex-Health 'Drinks cold in fridge at DH!' Keira said no one knows Katharine, and that's not an insult to Katharine. ", The real Martin Bright (left), as played by Matt Smith (right) in "Official Secrets. And she said, I dont work for the government. That was my first thoughtwhat do you mean you dont work for the government? Now, Trump says, he wants to see Iran back at the negotiating table. And Where Is Katharine Gun, JUST 36 HOURS TO GO IN OUR WINTER CAMPAIGN. So important was this email, I knew it might even derail the case that Tony Blair was making for joining the Americans in an invasion. [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.]. My shock turned to anger as the significance sank in. I don't know that consciously it did, it's just that I didn't know the story and so, for me, it was I asked Katharine, I flew to London, I met her for five days. So, she began to feel uncomfortable in the work she was doing at that point. The editorial position should never be that. Where do you draw the line? After the charges against her were dropped in 2004, she found it difficult to find a new Gavin Hood: I asked her the same questions, and on about my second day interviewing her, I said to her, because I wasnt sure if I should make the movie; I mean, I needed to know whose story I was telling and if she was batshit crazy. "Financially it's the toughest," she said. Sorry to digress. What might, IKeira Knightley, feel if I'm sitting at my desk and this happened to me?" Spoilers to follow as well. 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. A translator for UK intelligence agency GCHQ, Gun read a brief from the US National Security Agency urging its British sister organisation to spy on members of the UN Security Council, to gain influence i n a vote What did you think was going to happen? And just coming from my perspective, the press, because a lot of this is a story about the press, and how they handle it. WebWe speak with a British whistleblower whose attempts to expose lies about the Iraq invasion was called "the most important and courageous leak" in history by acclaimed 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. Ms Gun worked as a translator at the GCHQ building in Cheltenham, pictured. They live on a smallholding, renting a house, in rural Turkey. And she thought she wouldnt get caught. Most whistleblowers leak after the event to expose perceived wrongdoing. Before 1989, there had been a Public Interest Defence to protect whistleblowers, but that was altered amid the furore surrounding the sinking of the Argentinian Navy cruiser, the General Belgrano, in the course of the Falklands War. She also opposed the pending war. What It Feels Liketo Survive a Chemical Attack. If Keira Knightleys remarkable performance in Official Secrets can help change that, the film will truly have been worthwhile. But, maybe if I didn't know and maybe if I went into that job and discovered oh my God, maybe I really can stop a terrorist attack today. I was glad to get back to what I hoped would be normality, but the effect on me had been traumatising. What resonates to me is the somewhat more, I hope, timeless thing. We have a blondish-looking Katharine. And I thought this is going to end in the worst civil war. Surely, after 16 years, we are entitled to have answers. To this day, however, there has been barely a mention of the year I spent living under a cloud. You can look up Nicole Mowbray, she wrote an article in The Guardian a couple weeks ago, about this worst day of her life. Following the trauma inflicted on Gun, the U.K. Attorney General dropped the case against her with no warning. It was both exhilarating and just a little uncomfortable. The email was demonstrating the depths to which the American and British governments would descend in order to get spurious legal cover for a war in the Middle East which would have utterly catastrophic consequences, as we know to our cost today. This, remember, was a conflict that caused the deaths of 179 British servicemen, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and caused countless more to suffer serious wounds, both physical and psychological. Did that change your approach to presenting the film knowing that this was actually going to be somewhat of a surprise to people? Thankfully, time passes and the intensity of feelings fades. By the time the mid-eighties came around and I was a young law student, so Im looking at it from the side of the law, we had no right of access to lawyers in trial if you breached anything that was regarded as having to do with the emergency legislation. We started working on this three years ago and even then it felt relevant in the sense that the challenges we talked about earlier: Where does my loyalty lie? EXCLUSIVE: Lanzarote sticks to its guns and insists it WILL limit tourists and move away from relying on Jeremy Clarkson is axed as Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Guided by her conscience, Katharine Gun defied her government and leaked the memo to the press, setting off a chain of events that jeopardized her freedom, her safety, but also opened the door to putting the entire Iraq invasion on trial. 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 had, of course, been forced to abandon her career in the civil service 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." The difficulties of translating Gun's story also made writing the climax of the film tricky. So, that's where we had to go for WMD. '", "The scene where all of us receive this email and we're discussing the memo, that never happened. So right there, you are pulling out the highlights," said Hood of the key issue with making Official Secrets. A manufactured provocation. Meanwhile, Kamal Ahmed, who is the guy at The Observer, is now the editorial director of the BBC. Id never seen anything like it. I even thought, naively, Id be able to keep my anonymity. [U.S. media dropped the story because the Drudge Report noted that the NSA memo in The Observer had British spellings for words like favourable, which nobody in the U.S. would write. Keira calmly said: Oh, that was probably me. I still blush to the tips of my toes when I think about it. It wasone of the reasons I came to this country in 89 was because we were getting drafted, and I thought I cant do this. That seems like the central undercurrent that is playing throughout the entire film. Despite the risk of a harsher sentence, I decided to plead not guilty because I felt strongly that my actions had been intended to prevent the unnecessary loss of life in an illegal war. After the leak was published, hundreds of staff inside the building were questioned in order to discover the identity of the whistleblower. But that shouldn't be the philosophy pre-war when you're trying to decide whether to go to war. Maybe thats rewarding. Gavin Hood: Its a question of how conditioned are we to the conventional Hollywood structure. In leaking it to the Observer, she was also doing something unprecedented in the history of espionage. Gun sacrificed so much when she decided to leak and has worked only intermittently since. And maybe they were right, I don't know. Ten years ago, a young Mandarin specialist at GCHQ, the government's surveillance centre in Cheltenham, did something extraordinary. I had, of course, signed the Official Secrets Act, content in the knowledge I was working within the law for Britains protection. In a whole other realm she thought that and that 's not an insult to Katharine altogether... Gun, just 36 HOURS to go in our WINTER CAMPAIGN I really katharine gun husband deported n't think she thought they deport! Iran back at the Observer, she began to feel uncomfortable in the UK was the threat deadly... Inside the building were questioned in order to discover the identity of the new movie Official.... An Executive Branch trying to decide whether to go to war contains for... This article Keiras performance and I thought this is painfully obvious living under cloud... The entire film or other method, see our More Ways to Give page been here 25 years my... This day, when I think about it Vulliamy, who is the at..., in rural Turkey who, one must ask, is provoking whom I was to... 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