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.. 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. 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. This is a story about my life and my leak after all, and I still believe in the issues passionately. WebHer husband, Yaar Gn, is a Turkish Kurd. And those two are great actresses. Over the weekend, I got to work. They're more polite to their suspects. You 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. What we have in this country is very precious, and in a sense, when I make these kind of films I don't know if I consciously do it, it's actually reminding about us that authoritarianism and governments gone awry are not okay, and what makes us strongoh, that sounds terribly pretentious, but I think you see where I'm coming from. Keira said no one knows Katharine, and that's not an insult to Katharine. If it was, who cleared it to be passed to GCHQ? She said, I was naive. What resonates to me is the somewhat more, I hope, timeless thing. She wasnt charged for eight months a gruelling period which is depicted as just a few Spoilers to follow as well. 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. Surely, she thought, when people realised that the UK was being asked to collaborate in an operation to find out personal information that could be used to blackmail UN delegates, they would be outraged and the UK government would halt its slide into war. Yet here was a story that had the capacity to derail the war altogether. Do you vote, do you analyze who you should vote for or do you just take it for granted? It turned out a copyeditor at The Observer had run the memo through spellcheck before printing it.]. We even got as far as the Old Bailey. Six months later they released Nelson Mandela. And then there is the Gulf of Tonkin incident that led America deeply into war against North Vietnam. Exaggerating threats to provoke a war? Naturally, I was discreet. But I know some folks because of films I made like Eye in the Sky, and before that I made a film called Rendition. 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. In leaking it to the Observer, she was also doing something unprecedented in the history of espionage. ", Bright noted that apart from some small flourishes to heighten the drama, he didn't think Official Secrets had "any genuine liberties taken with the truth. 265 ratings46 reviews British secret service officer Katharine Gun's only crime was telling the truth, but she paid a steep price when she exposed a U.S.-U.K. spy operation to secure UN authorization for the Iraq invasion. The spin in this country and in the UK was the threat of deadly weapons ready to be deployed by Saddam. But ultimately, heres why I thinkthis might sound like a strange statement. When my turn came, I entered a small side office, faced the security official and, putting on my best poker face, denied any involvement. Iraq All Over Again? 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. David Dayen: The first thing I thought about when looking at this movie is that in most recent historical epics, the audience knows what's happening next. Official Secrets is, for the most part, a historical account of these events in 2003, but as with nearly all films based on a true story, some things have been changed to aid the drama of the narrative. 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. What is this paper? Across the world, millions protested the invasion of Iraq, doing their own small parts to attempt to prevent the war. There's an obvious scene of the immigration deportation. It was what I was thinking, what I was feeling. 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. And it's also true that we were then attacked by the Drudge Report for what would now be called 'fake news. It almost started with, well, would I have the courage to do what she did in another setting maybe? 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. 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. 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. I grew up in South Africa in the seventies and eighties, when apartheid was really tightening and tightening and tightening. Katharine Gun and Martin Bright could be forgiven for fielding Hollywoods overtures with a degree of skepticism. David Dayen: I want to go to the questions now. It was both exhilarating and just a little uncomfortable. Just occasionally I didn't plan to have this movie out today and know what was going to be going on. "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. 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. And I thought this is going to end in the worst civil war. And I went back in 93 and did another two years with the new Department of Health. But there's no way I would have expressed that to any of my colleagues," Gun explained. 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. Provocation? His philosophy comes from a military intelligence model, which actually, by the time you go to war, now it's about winning. So when I sent the script to Keira, and I was very hopeful that she would do it because she does a lot of period dramas, and you dont often see her in a modern drama and I thought shed be great. Later, it turned out that the Attorney General had indeed judged the war to be illegal in his initial advice, but that fact was not revealed until six years later in 2010. To look at someone who I thought was quite accessible and ordinaryand she doesn't mind me saying this because Katharine is someone who keeps her head below and is quiet, and did something extraordinary. 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. As it was, a second UN resolution directly to authorise war against Iraq never materialised and air strikes began on 19 March 2003. The case and the resulting anxiety never seemed far away. The film also captures my determination to do what I believed was right and reveals how divisive the Iraq War was, particularly highlighting the anger within certain sections of the intelligence services as the sabre-rattling statements of Mr Blair and his spokesman Alastair Campbell were accepted without proper challenge by some in the media. Not good enough, the trio decided. But the falsehoods and unnecessary wars of yesteryear likely have influenced the waning support for public institutions today. And it was there that, to our amazement and totally without warning, the CPS dropped the charges before the trial had even started. The paper had taken the controversial decision to back intervention in Iraq. So it was a pretty awful thing to happen to her. Because it's just an Executive Branch trying to grab power as an authoritarian. You are sitting in the intelligence services, and Ive spoken to many now because Ive made other films in that world and I have some interesting folks that Ive been able to talk to, and the struggle was were being disloyal if you dont toe a party line, as it were, but we know this isnt right. That means that, in theory, the war could still be classified as an illegal war, Gun says. I don't think she thought they would deport her husband, I really don't think she thought that. 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. When do the clocks change in 2023? And maybe they were right, I don't know. Only later did I appreciate the extent to which the journalists involved Martin Bright, Peter Beaumont and Ed Vulliamy had to go in order to prove that the email was legitimate. So, to find that it would be dramatised on the big screen was as wonderfully welcome as it was astonishing. The real-life Gun said: "The attempt at deportation kind of spiked my stress level again for another period of my life." I answered an advert in The Guardian newspaper for a translator. This is my second brief moment of fame. A script has been doing the rounds in Hollywood for five years. This was her first or second week at the paper. WebGun was followed, denied legal advice and her Turkish husband faced deportation. The story went around the world and the leak electrified the international debate during the weeks of diplomatic deadlock. Chile and Mexico and the other smaller countries were so outraged that they refused to even bring it to a vote. First, I contacted someone to this day Ive never named them who had the details of a journalist and anti-war activist. Gavin Hood: Yes, it really sticks in my throat too. Koza was in effect issuing a direct order to the employees of a UK security agency to gather "the whole gamut of information that could give US policymakers an edge in obtaining results favourable to US goals or to head off surprises". Had the film appeared any earlier, however, I dont think Id have been able to watch it, let alone help the makers. Not the truth, but the war. Gun was followed, denied legal advice and her Turkish husband faced deportation. At some point, as you probably know, Bush and Rumsfeld decided to bypass the CIA and take out that Office of Special Plans. (Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images). Webdeport Guns husband, Yasar (Adam Bakri), a Muslim Kurdish Turk who was awaiting permanent leave to remain in the U.K. 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. But Katharine Gun, whos now the subject of a new film, the Gavin Hood-directed Official Secrets, did a lot moreand became one of the most important political whistleblowers that most Americans have never heard of. Seven times I've submitted articles to you with an alternate point of view, and seven times you've turned me down. When Katharine Gun came across a memo while working for the British government in 2003, her whole world changed. And maybe if we went to work for Enron and we liked our job well enough, and its a job. ", Speaking to Gun, and seeing her in archival footage at the end of the film, it is clear that Knightley didn't try to emulate the look or sound of the real-life Gun. So, I guess we all have a threshold. For several years, just recalling the events would set my heart racing and my hands trembling. And the reason? A manufactured provocation. In the runup to the critical vote on war in Iraq, Katharine Gun exposed a US plot to spy on the UN. Which really, really, really happened. Look at what happened to Reality Winner in this country. This, despite credible evidence that Iran was in full compliance with terms of the agreement. Gun had hoped the leak would prick the conscience of the British public, large sections of which were already taking to the streets in opposition to the war. As of 2020 Gun lives in Turkey and Britain. 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. Neither my friends nor my family knew what I did all day. It was like a neon sign that was flashing at me, Gun says. She had been following that war, as many of us had, for a year. Cheering crowds have never been my sort of thing. My job had been to listen to Chinese communications, translate them from Mandarin to English and produce reports for different government departments. America, Britain, and Spain withdrew their proposed resolution on invading Iraq when it became clear that it would not garner the necessary Security Council votes, in part because of the information Gun brought to light. We were to target such things as phone calls and emails from their homes as well as their places of work. For all the relief, there was a weird sense of anti-climax that we would now be unable to give our side of the story to the public. '", The reality was not nearly as dramatic as in the film, where Bright and his editor are together in a newsroom when the mistake is revealed, leading to them being dropped from interviews with a number of international news outlets. I sensed a slight flash of anger as she said: "It's not even a footnote in the history of Iraq." He said she didnt even know what the job was. I didnt know until I looked really deeply into this that theres really two schools of thought. Which is to say that GCHQ was being asked to dig dirt on foreign officials so that they could be blackmailed, bribed or both in order to secure a UN resolution authorising an invasion. 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. Perhaps a plane painted in UN colors could be shot down over Iraq. 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. His work has appeared in The Intercept, The New Republic, HuffPost, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and more. And I think thats why you get this very honest, pure, deeply felt performance. So, that's where we had to go for WMD. 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. WebKatharine Guns husbands photo revelations are not made by her yet. So I said to her at one point, and its in the movie because her interrogator said it too and you would ask her the same question, which is Katharine I hear all this, but it was a little muddy, you worked as a spy, you hacked peoples phones and computers, you do dirty tricks. The issue is provocation. Much to the distress of our former partners in the Iran nuclear deal, Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the agreement and announced tougher sanctions. However, her husband and the father of her daughters name is Yasar Gun. She's based (and born and raised) in Brooklyn, New York. 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. Happy and carefree, Id recently married my handsome husband and was working at GCHQ as a linguist. Ten years ago, a young Mandarin specialist at GCHQ, the government's surveillance centre in Cheltenham, did something extraordinary. [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. And I did the same for the journalists and the lawyers and everybody. I admitted the leak and my life was turned upside down. The other kind of fight could be frightening and politically risky. "Because I think people see thatthe leaders of both the US and the UK conceivably could be considered war criminals, and yet they are walking free.". You can look up Nicole Mowbray, she wrote an article in The Guardian a couple weeks ago, about this worst day of her life. Gun was visiting friends and family in Cheltenham when I talked to her, with the strain obvious on her face but still looking much younger than her 38 years. I didnt know the story and I googled her. Gavin Hood: Its a great question. Gavin Hood: Its a question of how conditioned are we to the conventional Hollywood structure. WebKatharine Gun wasn't looking for attention or any type of notoriety when in 2003, while working as a British intelligence specialist, she leaked a top secret memo. At first, I heard nothing. Gavin Hood: And that really happened. Some called her a traitor; others insisted she was a hero. But I talk to people and there does seem to be a sense of failure that, despite all the campaigning and all the marching and all the protesting and everything they did, it made not a ha'porth of difference. David Dayen is the Prospects executive editor. After the leak was published, hundreds of staff inside the building were questioned in order to discover the identity of the whistleblower. "But the more I think about what happened, the more angry and frustrated I get about the fact that nobody acted on intelligence. She now has a four-year-old daughter who she is bringing up in Turkey. 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. She wasnt planning to get caught and then the dilemma was, My friends are all going to have their lives ruined.. And Where Is Katharine Gun, JUST 36 HOURS TO GO IN OUR WINTER CAMPAIGN. 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." Quality journalism. 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? "But that's partly my own fault because I haven't aggressively pursued a career. If I was writing this as fiction, I need a much longer court case, right? If if wasnt, what does that mean for the rule of law? I had, of course, signed the Official Secrets Act, content in the knowledge I was working within the law for Britains protection. [Gun was charged with violating the Official Secrets Act in Britain, but ultimately the case never went to trial.]. WebKatharine Gun (ne Harwood), 47, is married to Yasar Gn, a Turkish Kurd, with whom she has a 13-year old daughter. Because it was toughthe guy wouldnt print his stuff. Her 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. Rishi Sunak is urgently reviewing his private exchanges with Matt Hancock after bombshell leak of ex-Health 'Drinks cold in fridge at DH!' You have no idea. It should take the facts as they lead. 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