After the leak was published, hundreds of staff inside the building were questioned in order to discover the identity of the whistleblower. Webdeport Guns husband, Yasar (Adam Bakri), a Muslim Kurdish Turk who was awaiting permanent leave to remain in the U.K. However, her husband and the father of her daughters name is Yasar Gun. And it was there that, to our amazement and totally without warning, the CPS dropped the charges before the trial had even started. Gavin Hood: And that really happened. Gun was followed, denied legal advice and her Turkish husband faced deportation. 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. His most recent book is Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power.. Unfortunately. The British are quite British, you know. She went to this interview, the next minute were down this rabbit hole, the next minute my wifes telling the world. So Im very proud of Keiras performance and I dont mind that she doesnt have blonde hair. It is to say that we need to know the truth behind the decisions to act or not to act. Its had far reaching and very negative impacts in all aspects of our institutions and our public life," Gun says. 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. .css-gk9meg{display:block;font-family:Lausanne,Arial,sans-serif;font-weight:normal;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;padding-top:0.25rem;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}@media (any-hover: hover){.css-gk9meg:hover{color:link-hover;}}@media(max-width: 48rem){.css-gk9meg{font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.15;margin-bottom:0.25rem;}}@media(min-width: 40.625rem){.css-gk9meg{font-size:1rem;line-height:1.2;margin-bottom:0.625rem;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-gk9meg{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.2;}}@media(min-width: 73.75rem){.css-gk9meg{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.2;}}Facts You Didn't Know About That '70s Show, The Cast of 'The Mandalorian' in Real Life, The Hilarious Reason Why Chris Pine Cut His Hair, 'The Mandalorian' Season 3, Episode 1 Recap, Chris Pine Tells All About Harry Styles SpitGate, 15 Books Chris Pine Thinks Everyone Should Read, Your Guide to Every One of Justin Biebers Tattoos, Movie Sequels That Are Better Than the Original. Do you vote, do you analyze who you should vote for or do you just take it for granted? The contents were explosive, implicating America in a blackmail plot to swing UN votes in favor of an invasion. So, I guess we all have a threshold. Maybe that was naive, but she didn't think that. The same countries demanded immediate answers from the British government about its involvement in the spying. She was a spythe communications she translated had been obtained covertly, but she did the work in the interest of protecting Britain. The comments below have been moderated in advance. Seven times I've submitted articles to you with an alternate point of view, and seven times you've turned me down. David Dayen: But he is not a headline journalist at a newspaper. Please help keep the independent journalism of Common Dreams strong. ", "I think Gavin had a really difficult time telling this story because it doesn't fit into a normal sort of storytelling mode," said Gun. So here we are in rehearsal, and we're talking one day about the look. And I did the same for the journalists and the lawyers and everybody. Because it's just an Executive Branch trying to grab power as an authoritarian. 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. 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. In the years following, an author called Marcia Mitchell contacted me and said she was keen to write a book about my case. 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. 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.". Happy and carefree, Id recently married my handsome husband and was working at GCHQ as a linguist. 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. "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. 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 disclosed details of the spying operation as it was happening to stop something she viewed as terrible happening in the future. Hundreds of thousands were killed. And for her, this was too much. And the reason? 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." ", 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. A transcript, lightly edited with explainers where necessary, follows. She leaked a memo, she thought she'd get away with it, and she faced another one of these little moral dilemmas which was a few days later all her friends were being interrogated. 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. The real-life Gun said: "The attempt at deportation kind of spiked my stress level again for another period of my life." If the email did reach the newspapers, I reasoned, there would be no more than a discreet summary. That's the memo. Those are compelling and important qualities to see in characters that move through a story, and I feel like especially for women it's an under-valued active engine. I dont know if theyd have discovered me eventually, but the fact is I couldnt live a lie for ever. It should take the facts as they lead. 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. 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. And Where Is Katharine Gun, JUST 36 HOURS TO GO IN OUR WINTER CAMPAIGN. Provocation? Following the trauma inflicted on Gun, the U.K. Attorney General dropped the case against her with no warning. Now the goal is not truth, it is victory. 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. We must not be flummoxed by exaggerated claims of threats against America and our interests. David Dayen is the Prospects executive editor. But the invasion was forced to proceed with the backing of Bushs coalition of the willinginstead of with the support of the United Nations. 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. She said, I was naive. And that's quite a depressing place to find yourself in when you feel so strongly and passionately about something. Healthy mother-of-two, 32, collapsed and died from brain bleed while she led fitness bounce class. David Dayen: How did you think Keira Knightley was an asset in showing that emotional journey throughout the movie? But there's no way I would have expressed that to any of my colleagues," Gun explained. Martin Bright, who is in the movie very briefly I guess, is no longer in journalism as I understand it. But my point is simply this: The underpinnings of this country matter. Daniel Ellsberg, the celebrated American whistleblower who leaked the Pentagon Papers about the build-up to the war in Vietnam, described it as "the most important and courageous leak I have ever seen".He added: "No one else including myself has ever done what Katharine Gun did: tell secret truths at personal risk, before an imminent war, in time, possibly, to avert it.". What did you think was going to happen? Gabrielle Bruney is a writer and editor for Esquire, where she focuses on politics and culture. Meanwhile, Kamal Ahmed, who is the guy at The Observer, is now the editorial director of the BBC. 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? [In real life] I saw the email, I immediately thought, 'Oh, my God, this is shocking.' I was 27 when it all began. By the time Gun and around 100 of her colleagues received the emailed memo that would change her life, she had already come to the conclusion that the arguments for war with Iraq were not really valid arguments, she tells me. ", Keira Knightley and Katharine Gun at the London premiere of "Official Secrets. 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. 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. Chile and Mexico and the other smaller countries were so outraged that they refused to even bring it to a vote. Gavin Hood: Its a great question. Truth and accountability were drilled into me as a child. You dont have to agree with what she did, Im just telling you what she did. '", "The scene where all of us receive this email and we're discussing the memo, that never happened. It was what I was thinking, what I was feeling. 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). You work for the government. 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. WebIn 2003, Katharine Gun exposed a plot by U.S. security officials to spy on United Nations members as they ramped up pressure to secure a resolution to go to war with Iraq, and 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. 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. By Katharine Gun, Gchq Whistleblower For The Mail On Sunday, Published: 22:33 GMT, 26 October 2019 | Updated: 16:47 GMT, 8 November 2019. The story of Katharine Gun, a whistle-blower who exposed NSA spying in the lead-up to the Iraq War, gets the Hollywood treatment. A decade on, sitting in a cafe in Cheltenham, not far from GCHQ, I asked her if she still stood by what she had done. I even thought, naively, Id be able to keep my anonymity. And it's also true that we were then attacked by the Drudge Report for what would now be called 'fake news. 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. 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. She's based (and born and raised) in Brooklyn, New York. Sound familiar? "But that's partly my own fault because I haven't aggressively pursued a career. And then, she said when she got in therenow bear in mind that she still is bound by the Official Secrets Act. However, she is not without disappointment about how little obvious difference she made. 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. 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 I said goodbye to my mom and moved to America. So WMD may not have been as important, had they gotten that resolution. It's a fascinating film that really evokes the dangers of speaking out in the post-9/11 age, as well as the press's inability to challenge the official story on Iraq, particularly the U.S. press, which really just blacked out the Gun leak entirely. "Obviously, we are compressing a story that took place in real life over a period of a year into two hours. So it was a pretty awful thing to happen to her. 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. As a film of her story is planned, she tells of her anger and frustration but not her regrets, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, Katharine Gun back in Cheltenham last week: 'This is the ugly truth of what goes on.' Warning: The following contains spoilers for Official Secrets. To separate fact from fiction, Newsweek spoke to the real Gun and Bright, as well as Official Secrets director Gavin Hood. Most directly, it bolstered opposition to the US position from Chilean and Mexican diplomats weary of American "dirty tricks". And he kept thinking, 'How am I going to portray this? 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. 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. Such a law is not compatible with openness, transparency, accountability and justice. He really wouldnt; that scene in the movie really happened. Official Secrets Trailer #1 (2019) | Movieclips Trailers, Imagine Donald Trump Running an Actual War. You took this job and didnt even know what it was. Yet I do think Keira perfectly captures the strain I was under, the isolation and fear. Rishi Sunak is urgently reviewing his private exchanges with Matt Hancock after bombshell leak of ex-Health 'Drinks cold in fridge at DH!' 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 actually think the little memo lands on our lap more often than we think, even if it's just who I should vote for. Iran, of course, isn't interested in dealing with him. 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. 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. But the Bush administration went to war anyway, using the pretext of weapons of mass destruction. And Assange is the same. 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. Copyright 2023 | The American Prospect, Inc. | All Rights Reserved, The Alt-Labor Chronicles: Americas Worker Centers, Official Secrets: A Conversation With Director Gavin Hood. 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? And we keep that system alive. 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. David Dayen: And you were dealing with a story that was about a leak that didn't stop a war and leading to a trial that didn't happen. Only now, more than a decade and a half later, is this disturbing sequence of events once again receiving the attention it deserves thanks to Official Secrets, a brilliant new movie starring Keira and former Doctor Who, Matt Smith. Direct to your inbox. Throughout her own court case, what only a few knew was that she was also fighting for 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. Unfortunately, perhaps, I have a conscience and my dishonesty gnawed at me persistently until the next day, when I confessed. Over the weekend, I got to work. So we just worked on the performance from the very what if it's you? 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. 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. When my moment came, I found myself standing alone in the dock facing the judge and surrounded by lawyers, journalists and supporters. [Ahmed is depicted in the film as strongly pro-war, resistant to running stories that conflict with his opinion.]. Anyway, the Office of Special Plans and Abram Shulsky make an interesting Wikipedia read, it won't take you very long. 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. And that I think was the motivation. As it was, a second UN resolution directly to authorise war against Iraq never materialised and air strikes began on 19 March 2003. 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. To tell too much more of the story would spoil the film, but one part of its ending is clear. 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. 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? Amazing lady, shes still a journalist. I didnt know the story and I googled her. 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. Ms Gun worked as a translator at the GCHQ building in Cheltenham, pictured. Then, the following November, after eight months of worry, I was finally charged. 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