Such a law is not compatible with openness, transparency, accountability and justice. "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.". And I think thats why you get this very honest, pure, deeply felt performance. It sounds big with Katharine but that's what inspired me. 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. Not good enough, the trio decided. There's an obvious scene of the immigration deportation. Our institutions matter. 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. Not mine or The Observer's finest hour, has to be said. 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. The British are quite British, you know. Exaggerating threats to provoke a war? Some of those same birds are still flapping wings in the skies above Washington. She was charged 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. After the leak was published, hundreds of staff inside the building were questioned in order to discover the identity of the whistleblower. 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. Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday & Metro Media Group, King Charles hosts von der Leyen at Windsor Castle, Police: Urgent search for Constance Marten's missing baby, Shocking video shows machete fight in broad daylight, Gabor Mat: No Jewish state without oppressing local population, Putin spy plane before being 'destroyed by pro-Ukraine Belarus group', Amplified jet stream could lead to 'disruptive snow in places', Pupils take to TikTok as they stage protest at Shenfield High School, Putin orders intelligence service to find 'scum' who oppose him, Moment supermarket cashier is attacked at work in New York, Police search allotment sheds for Constance Marten's missing baby, Huge urgent police search for missing baby of Constance Marten, Dashcam captures moment two cars collide on a roundabout. So when, on the first Sunday of March, 2003, my leak appeared on the front page of The Observer newspaper, I was overcome with shock. "Obviously, we are compressing a story that took place in real life over a period of a year into two hours. On the other hand, she and Ben, to this day, feel they never got their day in court. This meant that a lot of the things that we see Gun go through in the film actually took far longer in real life. WebGun sacrificed so much when she decided to leak and has worked only intermittently since. According to the Guardian, They live on a smallholding, renting a house, in rural Turkey. The email, which was sent by an American NSA official, suggested that the US was just as well aware that it couldnt earn UN support through valid arguments alone: The memo outlined a plan to bug diplomats from non-permanent UN Security Council Nations Chile, Pakistan, Bulgaria, Guinea, Angola, and Cameroon in search of intelligence that could be used to cajole and possibly even blackmail them into supporting the invasion. And Where Is Katharine Gun, JUST 36 HOURS TO GO IN OUR WINTER CAMPAIGN. Then the story went the waning support for public institutions today. 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. Martin Bright, who is in the movie very briefly I guess, is no longer in journalism as I understand it. Because I'm not ambitious it's not paramount for me to find myself in a high-paid job. Because it was toughthe guy wouldnt print his stuff. Moment fitness influencer asks man to move off park bench 'because he's 'ruining her livestream' - but Mortgage demand plummets to a 28-year low as average interest rates hit 6.71% - just as spring home buying Britain braces for brutal -9C Arctic snap: Met Office warns more snow and ice could lash the country next Is YOUR wood burner at risk? Every product was carefully curated by an Esquire editor. Gavin Hood: After the spellcheck. I got that from Yasar. She failed. The story of Katharine Gun, a whistle-blower who exposed NSA spying in the lead-up to the Iraq War, gets the Hollywood treatment. And she said, I dont work for the government. That was my first thoughtwhat do you mean you dont work for the government? [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. So Im very proud of Keiras performance and I dont mind that she doesnt have blonde hair. But ultimately, heres why I thinkthis might sound like a strange statement. And Assange is the same. Who knows whether they would've bent those other nations to vote for a resolution. You might say I am biased. And I went back in 93 and did another two years with the new Department of Health. "There seems to be this blas attitude the spying goes on, everyone does it and so it's nothing to get all hot under the collar about. 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. And I did the same for the journalists and the lawyers and everybody. After the initial flurry of media interest, I was left to figure out how to move on with my life and that proved hard. In technical speak, the Americans wanted the whole gamut of information which would give US policy makers an edge in obtaining results favourable to US goals in relation to Iraq. David Dayen: One thing I think you depict really brilliantly in this story is what the climate was like at the time. Progressive values. After a police interview, at which I repeated my admission, I was released on bail to await the decision of the Crown Prosecution Service. And those two are great actresses. Six months later they released Nelson Mandela. She got into a plea bargain, they still gave her five years. But she said she would still be prepared to give evidence to the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war. 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. I had, of course, signed the Official Secrets Act, content in the knowledge I was working within the law for Britains protection. Anyway, the Office of Special Plans and Abram Shulsky make an interesting Wikipedia read, it won't take you very long. He loves a battle, when it's done with words, boasts, and threats. Sixteen years ago, I became headline news after I leaked an internal email from GCHQ, the communications intelligence gathering centre near Cheltenham. As the title of the film script suggests, she was "The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War". Why did the British authorities wait eight months before charging me and then drop the charges, claiming there was insufficient evi-dence for prosecution when I had confessed to the leak from the start? ", 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. WebI disappeared with my husband down to the coast in Brighton, on the coast of England, and spent some time away from the limelight, Gun said in the interview. We go to the canteen and we talk.. I sensed a slight flash of anger as she said: "It's not even a footnote in the history of Iraq." He really wouldnt; that scene in the movie really happened. She said, I was naive. I didnt know until I looked really deeply into this that theres really two schools of thought. Was it because we had demanded the Attorney Generals legal advice as part of my defence? 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? Gun made the choice to leak the document, which Martin Bright of The Observer in Britain published in a story on March 2, 2003. ", 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? First, I contacted someone to this day Ive never named them who had the details of a journalist and anti-war activist. None of the Government reports into the war acknowledged it, nor did the history books. 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". 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 David Dayen: But he is not a headline journalist at a newspaper. Donald Trump also is saying he doesn't want war, which is probably true. This was her first or second week at the paper. 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". 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. What is this paper? This is my second brief moment of fame. Unfortunately, perhaps, I have a conscience and my dishonesty gnawed at me persistently until the next day, when I confessed. So that's who's running this show. It is written by Sara and Gregory Bernstein, a California-based husband-and-wife writing partnership who have worked with British director Jonathan Lynn. So she said, Can I just do nothing with my hair, put on the jeans like Katharine wore? So the wardrobe is accurate to Katharine's style. 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. 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. This is a story about my life and my leak after all, and I still believe in the issues passionately. 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. It was almost as if that request was asking for someone within their own nation to do this work; it wasn't asking another completely independent state for co-operation.". It left me in an impossible predicament. So thank you for being here, it means a lot. Problem number two: Do you shut up or do you speak up? Spoilers to follow as well. He runs a media charity. We need another Katharine Gun. Instead, the American coalition was The team of hawks circling George Bush had long wanted to take out Saddam Hussein, as did Bush. David Dayen: No problem. And it's not an easy question, it sounds easy, but I don't think it is. And when we got to that point in the movie, I had to start montaging it because it was just taking too long to get to the end. Perhaps they don't trust him to keep his word. 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 believe that all of this should have been formally acknowledged as part of the history of the second Gulf War. 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). And that's quite a depressing place to find yourself in when you feel so strongly and passionately about something. "Still no regrets," she said. That means that, in theory, the war could still be classified as an illegal war, Gun says. 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. Questioner: It was so heartening to hear you talk about that hero's journey because I feel like we so often take compassion, passion, integrity for granted as a call to action. Though celebrated Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg would later call Guns actions the most important and courageous leak in history due to her efforts to save lives through preventing a war, she obviously didnt succeed in stopping the invasion. So I said goodbye to my mom and moved to America. Some called her a traitor; others insisted she was a hero. WebIts the tale of whistleblower Katharine Gun, a former translator for the UKs Government Communications HQ, who leaked a top-secret memo in 2003 on the eve of a divisive US-led war. So she went along to this interview, and she was 28. 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