But anyway. She urged "those in a position to do so to disclose information which relates to this planned aggression; legal advice, meetings between the White House and other intelligence agencies, assessments of Iran's threat level (or better yet, evidence that assessments have been altered), troop deployments and army notifications. So, of course, I was a little bit sort of reserved. AMY GOODMAN: The San Francisco Film Festival. AMY GOODMAN: That was 2014. "We still do not know all that happened - what GCHQ did, and why things happened," he said. AMY GOODMAN: I mean, youre the guy who broke the story that showed that Britain was collaborating with the U.S. in trying to get dirt on U.S. ambassadors, AMY GOODMAN: to get them to vote for the war in Iraq, which ended up killingwhat do you say at the end of the film? And all we were focused on was what might it felt like in this moment to have been Katharine. In 2003, Katharine Gun, a young specialist working for Britain's Government Communications Headquarters, exposed a highly confidential memo that revealed the United States' collaboration with . Yes and no. as Katharine knows, it can be tougher to be right than to be wrong sometimes, if on those lucky occasions that one is right. AMY GOODMAN: Works for the attorney general. About five months or something? Gun was outraged by the email, and took a printed copy of it home with her. Gun is on Mondays episode of the Guardian podcast Today in Focus, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. Ten years ago, a young Mandarin specialist at GCHQ, the government's surveillance centre in Cheltenham, did something extraordinary. You dont know who the GCHQ person is. Rob Schenck, introduces newly named Senior Fellow Dr. Joel Looper and his new book, Bonhoeffer's America: A Land without Reformation. The Tony Blair Conscience Fund or something? I wanted to stop bombs dropping on Iraq., The consequences have been damaging not just for Guns career. So. He says, Wait a minute. That accountability is key. [4], After spending her childhood in Taiwan, where she attended Morrison Academy until the age of 16, Katharine returned to Britain to study for her A-levels at Moira House School, a girls' boarding school in Eastbourne. A New Film Tells Her Story, 15 Years Later: How U.K. Whistleblower Katharine Gun Risked Everything to Leak a Damning Iraq War Memo, Links to news stories (20032006) about Katharine Gun, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Katharine_Gun&oldid=1149317616, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles containing potentially dated statements from 2020, All articles containing potentially dated statements, Articles containing potentially dated statements from 2019, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 11 April 2023, at 13:29. As soon as I opened the door and he saw me coming in, and he could see something was wrong, and thenand I said, Theyve taken him. And he went, The bastards! So, anyway, I was on the phone. The memo was a top-secret request to monitor the private communication of UN delegates for scraps of information, personal or otherwise, that could be used to give the US an edge in leveraging support for the invasion. She has a younger brother who teaches in Taiwan. We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work. Strange concept, but you do. " Gun tails off, as if embarrassed to make too grand a claim for herself. GAVIN HOOD: Almost a million. whistleblower and former specialist for Britains Government Communications Headquarters. Theyre watching, you know, video games and bombs landing on Baghdadshock and awe. Its a paper that supported fascism between the wars, and sort of still does, in its way. Consider donating here. You know, youre the attorney general. Gun had, of course, been forced to abandon her career in the civil service and finally, struggling for work, left Britain altogether. AMY GOODMAN: And then what happened? ED VULLIAMY: Yes. Katharine Gun's case can also be very relevant for Julian Assange's defense: "Within half an hour, the case was dropped because the prosecution declined to offer evidence. I was calling Nigel Jones, my MP. Interview: Whistleblower Katharine Gun. British linguist, translator and whistleblower, This article is about the British whistleblower. And the other way is the good, old-fashioned self-defense. Gun told Bright in 2013, "There seems to be this blas attitude - the spying goes on . And then, on Tuesday, they called me in, and I went in. The film stars Ma. You have the U.S. in the longest war in U.S. history, in Afghanistan. We could haveyou know, you always have regrets, dont you? The country, at the time, was being drummed into war by the Blair government, desperate to achieve the United Nations sanction for the imminent American-led invasion of Iraq. Bright has also been closely involved with the film. Shes ordinary. And we still dont know why the British government dropped the case. Because it offered her both a resolution, and none? I mean, couldnt have been happier with the casting choice, because Ben Emmerson is a force of nature, absolute force of nature, and a great international lawyer. delivered to your inbox every day! AMY GOODMAN: Gavin, introduce us to Ben Emmerson. They may have chosen to push those boundaries, but they did know the difference, and they knew that it mattered if they were caught. AMY GOODMAN: So you just thought this was routine. The love between Katharine and her husband, Yasar Gun, is undeniable, and the punishment they must to endure together is heart stopping. In Official Secrets, Gun is played by Keira Knightley while Matt Smith takes on the role of Martin Bright. It was like watching a case that was very similar to my own. Maybe? AMY GOODMAN: And a story that could have saved so many lives, except. Counted amongst the likes of Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and John Kiriakou is Katharine Gun, a whistleblower whose actions revealed the shocking underbelly of international politics and also inspired a big-budget movie that introduced many to the issue. Initially, Gun decided to teach Mandarin Chinese in Britain. So, no, I mean, I didnt want to say I was guilty when I didnt feel guilty. As Katharine Gun told me during our "Salon Talks" conversation, being played by Keira Knightley in a movie was approximately the last thing she ever thought might happen to her. MARTIN BRIGHT: We didI tell you what, though, we did feel that we had failed. The comedown after they dropped the case, and trying to recover from that, was quite stressful.. Her performance reminds you of the sentiment of Daniel Ellsberg, the man who famously leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times in 1971, revealing the full truth of American involvement in Vietnam. Dr. There are almost no defenses to this act. AMY GOODMAN: And these ambassadors are the ambassadors of? My childhood friend, for example, I remember hearing her father was on a blacklist because he had been agitating for the opposition. All I want to do is feel the emotions that this young woman felt, and dont want to be fussed over. And it was great. I mean, thisI dont want this to sound sanctimonious. Naturally, people are curious to know more about this courageous linguist who stood her ground even as political heavyweights descended upon her. Nobody knows if whistleblowing is nurture or nature. Gun is grimly amused to see his current return to the moral high ground over Brexit. If we found other information, it may have been different, but this information seemed to show us that wed been lied to. No need for weapons of mass destruction arguments. As of 2019[update] she has lived in Turkey with her husband and daughter for several years. AMY GOODMAN: the person in charge of news. So, GCHQ had been aware of this for over 24 hours, and they were waiting for everybody to come back into work on Monday, and they were prepared. AMY GOODMAN: Ed Vulliamy, you were the U.S. correspondent for The Observer. Which agency was it? Congratulations are in order for Fox News personality Kat Timpf and her beau Cameron Friscia! KATHARINE GUN: Well, I mean, its terrifying. But lets go back to the moment. Guns story is not only an inspiration to her own daughter, but also to people around the world trying to be honest and brave citizens. Many wonder whether Guns young daughter has seen the film or been told of the importance of her mothers extraordinary actions. Get Democracy Now! Timpf, 32, and Friscia, 34, tied the knot . Official Secrets, directed by Gavin Hood, is the third in a loose trilogy of political . How am I possibly going to do that? Frequent Fox News guest and conservative commentator Mary Katharine Ham announced the death of her husband, Jake Brewer, on Sunday morning in a heartfelt Instagram post . It was in a police cell that she uttered those two sentences that now seem to define the person she was and is. So give us the nutthe nutshell description of this story. And they attempt to deport your husband, who is a? [16], Her husband, Yaar Gn,[17][18] is a Turkish Kurd. So, from a dramatic point of view, you have someone whos just going to their job every day, as most of us do, happens to be a spy working for GCHQ, but could have been a person working for an accounting firm or Enron or Boeing or any other organization, who sees something that is simply wrong, sees, you know, and says, GAVIN HOOD: and says, Im going to speak up.. AMY GOODMAN: And then what happened? So a very big story got crushed very quickly. KATHARINE GUN: Well, OK, I know I was guilty in the facts of the matter. We didnt talk about politics much. And looking back, its easy to be nostalgic about how things were with Bush and Blair, because it looks like these people were easier to hold to account. KATHARINE GUN: No, she hasnt. This is, sadly, a story of failure. What were your thoughts then? AMY GOODMAN: Youre watching that on television. This is Democracy Now! We 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 Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg. KATHARINE GUN: I was waiting outside in the police station, yes. Strange Hollywood person. The side of that history that Gun didnt really know in its fullest detail until she worked on the film was the drama of how the story made it into the pages of the Observer. As well as illuminating Guns story, though, the film gives what was, by any standards, one of the great scoops of recent British journalism the credit that is long overdue. AMY GOODMAN: They said you could have pled. Macdonald stated that Gun would not have received a fair trial without the disclosure of information that would have compromised national security. Katharine Gun at Bow Street magistrates court in 2003 after being charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act. Brights story was news to Gun herself, to a large degree. MARTIN BRIGHT: But once everyone did, there waswe knew that there was somethingthere was something going on. Gun was asked by Special Branch officers why she had chosen to act as she had. Spoiler: After Katharine Gun's identity became known, we at the Institute for Public Accuracy brought on Jeff Cohen, the founder of FAIR, to work with Hollie Ainbinder to get prominent individuals to support Gun. Her upbringing later led her to describe herself as a "third culture kid". So how am I, with my tiny team of researchers, going to do anything like that? And so, its one of those moments where you realizeI mean, the chill went up my spine, like I thought, Ive got to get out of here. So, yes, that was not a good moment, yeah. KATHARINE GUN: No, nothing atwell, they said they were arresting me on suspicion of breaking the Official Secrets Act. GAVIN HOOD: Yes, strong women. Does she tell her story when she meets new people? A full trial might have exposed any such documents to public scrutiny, as the defence was expected to argue that trying to stop an unlawful war of aggression outweighed Gun's obligations under the Official Secrets Act. She worked at the time at GCHQ, the British equivalent of the NSA." During the season 5 finale of American Idol, Katharine McPhee was named the runner-up against winner Taylor Hicks. MARTIN BRIGHT: I mean, there are a series of questions of accountability here. For example, youre racing to the hospital with your wife. And so, we talked about motherhood and all sorts of things, but I was just so impressed with how intelligent she was and how incisive she was in getting to the crux of the matter. We do not accept funding from advertising, underwriting or government agencies. But yeah, I mean, I was hugely impressed. Ed Vulliamys character, played by Rhys Ifans in the film, says, you know, he effing caved at the time when his country needed him most. delivered to your inbox every day! GAVIN HOOD: Thats exactly right. The war did not end when George W. Bush said, Mission accomplished. It was only just beginning. [5] While at work at GCHQ on 31 January 2003, Gun read an email from Frank Koza, the chief of staff at the "regional targets" division of the American signals intelligence agency, the National Security Agency.[7]. In this episode of Schenck Talks Bonhoeffer, TDBI Founder and President, Rev. You were just waiting. Shes just wearing her jeans and jumpers, you know, to work. In its absence, Tony Blair won another election in 2005. I think our problem now, and I think this applies on both sides of the Atlantic, is that we have populist politicians for whom that doesnt matter. KATHARINE GUN: I dont know. I mean, my initial encounter with him at the Faith Foundation was extremely concerning, in fact, because he said that what he wanted me to do was develop a heat map, you know, an interactive map of all the madrassas, you know, Islamic schools, around the world, with my tiny team of two or three interns, showingand he looked me in the eye, and he said, I want you to be ableI want people who are looking on our website to be able to see how radical those madrassas are, by color coding.. The Observers front page story on 2 March 2003. to your inbox each morning. Why did you choose to do this film? "[22], In January, 2019, the film Official Secrets, recounting Gun's actions in 2003, received its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, with Keira Knightley playing Gun. And towards the end of the Q&A session, an elderly gentleman put up his hand and said, Im very interested in the issue of Frank Koza. Published on May 3, 2021 08:23 PM. One question that recurs, she says, comes from audience members asking what they should do, how they should behave, in the current mendacious political climate. She becomes the corporate sister-daughter, she dives into the power suit and high-waisted pants or Katharine Hepburn moment. I think youll find hes hiding in plain sight. And there was a dramatic hush in the audience. Katharine Gun was a young specialist working for Britains Government Communications Headquarters when she exposed a highly confidential memo that revealed the United States was working with the United Kingdom to collect sensitive information on United Nations Security Council members in order to pressure them into supporting the Iraq invasion. Something like. In 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 she leaked the . He would have had to have the authority of Lord Goldsmith to prosecute. I heard things that stuck. Some journalist needs to go and have a hardcore interview with Lord Goldsmith. You know, the conservative estimates are 125,000 up to a million. Truth has a habit of . I mean, I dont think we imagined that we would be still friends and still talking about it 14, 15 years later. I felt that I had done the morally right thing to do. Lord Goldsmith must have saidI mean, I imagine. I denied it. Keira Knightley: Iraq was the first time Id been politically engaged, Leaking or briefing? And she hadnt said why she had resigned. So, I just lay that out, really. 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.Or at least, she could have been. AMY GOODMAN: What was it called? Im going, No, II dont. He said, Just google Katharine Gun and official secrets. So I googled official secrets Katharine Gun, becausethe title of our film comes from the Official Secrets Act, which is what she breached when she leaked the memo. AMY GOODMAN: And Alton went from The Observer and ultimately made his way, ED VULLIAMY: Via variousvia Rupert Murdochs Times, yes. And that if the perpetrators in these situations get away scot-free, that has a knock-on effect. MARTIN BRIGHT: Well, I wasof course, the irony of the situation is that when we heard that a GCHQ employee, a 27-year-old GCHQ employee, Mandarin translator, I think we even said at the time, had been arrested, we were absolutely delighted, because we knew for sure that we had a big story at that point. I took up teaching. So I really didnt want any of that to be scrutinized because it just felt too vulnerable, stated Gun, on why she chose to retreat from the limelight once the dust had settled. And they say, Were not even going to vote on this resolution. And the next day, we invade. In 2003, Gun was working as a translator of Mandarin at the government intelligence agency, GCHQ, in Cheltenham. These were, as I said before, bitter times. But jokes aside, the reason she said to methe reason I constantly find myself going. All rights reserved. Gun, too, had expressed relief that the events are now part of a broader discussion due to the film and that she can finally talk about it without stress. KATHARINE GUN: It was GCHQ internal security, yeah. ", "US plan to bug Security Council: the text", "Let's free the Official Secrets Act from its cold war freeze | Alex Bailin", "Leaking or briefing? I wish wed pushed it harder with the boss class within The Observer. You know, in the end, there was a feeling, I think, whatI know that Katharine and I have talked about this a lot. Although Katharine Gun returned to the public eye in 2019 for the promotional press events for Official Secrets, she has largely retreated from the medias gaze since. diamond a ranch new mexico hunting using the weber burger press what does it mean when a willie wagtail follows you. GAVIN HOOD: This amazing lawyer, with great dignityElizabeth Wilmshurst, whos in the movie, Ralph Fiennes playing Ben Emmersonhas the cup of tea with her. I wonder what she made of the scattershot download methods of Edward Snowden and Julian Assange? You know, youre not waiting for someone for hours in makeup. This is Democracy Now! Whistleblower Katharine Gun and journalist Martin Bright are interviewed for their new movie Official Secrets for the film's LFF screening. You think everyone sees on your face that youre the leaker. Yeah, so it was panic stations after that. But, yes, I did. Also with us, the director of Official Secrets, Gavin Hood. I mean, I think we did feel that we journalisticallyyou know, we could have done more as a newspaper. She was the real-life translator who photocopied . And a fireman does that if he bashes your house down to get to you. Guns leak was perhaps the last example of whistleblowing that involved a red telephone box and a photocopier, rather than downloads. "[12] In May 2019 The Guardian stated the case was dropped "when the prosecution realised that evidence would emerge that even British government lawyers believed the invasion was unlawful. Much of the news desk was opposed. When Gun was approached with the idea for a script by Gavin Hood (who had recently made Eye in the Sky, the film about drone warfare, with Helen Mirren), the pair of them first talked for five days in London, getting the story straight. Thats our job. So I was . No, Gun replied, steadily. These folksbecause there are two legal ways you can go to war in international law. We still dont know who Frank Koza is, or hes still not given a public interview about about what went on. After the case was dropped I did some media for 24 hours and then I immediately decided to run away and hide and not pursue the story any more. Maybe there will be sympathy.. AMY GOODMAN: And what did you tell Katharine at that time? First day, what did you feel? ED VULLIAMY: Thank you. The second act of the movie is concerned with the internal newspaper politics of that decision. I mention those lines about working for the people rather than the government. That is a difficult question, she says. And through the lights, I couldnt quite see who the guy was. We thought maybe it would be some crusty old senior guy from a rival agency. He was going in every week to basically prove that he was still resident or that they could pinpoint where he was. However, during one such trip, her husband was detained by the authorities. Gun has spoken at the 51Fest and conferences arranged by organizations such as the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). . Ben Emmerson is. Woman who tried to stop a war. MARTIN BRIGHT: Yeah, I mean, around that time. GAVIN HOOD: What she discovers saysis a request from the NSA to GCHQ to hack, bug the private communications and the office communications of U.N. Security Council members, in particular the nonpermanent members, the more junior members. But deep inside me, I didnt feel guilty. Attempts were made by the authorities to deport her husband, who grew disillusioned with Britain. AMY GOODMAN: And did they say they were going to charge you with the Official Secrets Act? I was the U.S. correspondent indeed, but very soon I was in Najaf, Nasiriyah, Fallujah, unembedded, watching this bloody carnage, thisthe implosion of this country. For the past nine years she has been living in Turkey with her Turkish husband and their 11-year-old daughter. She was 27. Her father had studied Chinese at Durham University and now teaches at Tunghai University in the city of Taichung, central Taiwan. We, as a collective group of countries, decide that we need to stop an event, a humanitarian disaster or a genocide or whatever. I had had my own story on the fabrication of the weapons of mass destruction, the existence of a shadow intelligence-cooking agency within the Pentagon, which we at The Observer had for five months before Sy Hersh, with great respect to Sy, published it in The New Yorker. Starring Kiera Knightley, Matt Smith, Matthew Goode, and Ralph Fiennes in pivotal roles, the film is one of the more accurate cinematic explorations of real-life instances. However, Yasar could not be there for her trial as Gun, and her associates worried that his presence would turn Guns story into that of his as a refugee in Britain. AMY GOODMAN: So, theyre processing him. KATHARINE GUN: Yeah. AMY GOODMAN: So, the Daily Mail, very sympathetic also to President Trump. MARTIN BRIGHT: Yeah, I mean, the story doesnt end. You hardly told anybody what you had done. There have been other attempts to make a film over the years. In fact, Iyou know, I couldnt bear to watch the scenes. When Katharine Gun came across a memo while working for the British government in 2003, her whole world changed. You get pulled over. I didnt want to be that. Now, that doesnt mean we shouldnt try to hold them to account. You want to know where he is?. And so I did. Photo: Kevin RC Wilson. What was he telling Blair until the 11th hour, where he changed his mind, it seems, at the 11th hour, and said, 'Oh, well, you can justify on the basis of Resolution 678 from 1991,' this fringe idea that no decent international lawyerand Im an ex-lawyerbelieves to be even remotely sensible?. Mr. Davies, in his book, has done more recently, AMY GOODMAN: And he said to you, Martin, at least in the film, This will jeopardize our access.. It is loud, clear, confident, creative, interesting. And nor do newspaper stories. It is not often that a persons character is revealed in two sentences. And I didnt want to have a record. And Mr.. And at the end of the Q&A, I went to try and find him, and hed gone. The film -- quite plausibly -- depicts the charges being dropped against Gun for the simple reason that the British government feared . . AMY GOODMAN: The people Martin was fighting to get this story out. And, you know, he had nothing on him. And I was tasked to set up a website to look into this. Official Secrets is based on the actions of Brit Katharine Gun, who revealed that America had been eavesdropping on diplomats from other countries. 2023 Cinemaholic Inc. All rights reserved. The classified email Gun got leaked to The Observer was evidence of the clandestine attempt of the American intelligence to reportedly seek help from the UK in wiretapping the members of the UN Security Council to motivate them to vote in favor of the invasion of Iraq. Its incredibly daunting, you know. When do you first meet, you, the person who exposed this story, Martin Bright, and Katharine Gun? Thats [inaudible]. AMY GOODMAN: The horror of what you did not succeed in preventing, though, which was the deaths of so many in Iraq, and that continues today, but you certainly touched the conscience of not just the nation, but the world, in what you did, talking about what womanwhat one woman could do. And yeah, it was, AMY GOODMAN: And what did you think, whenbefore you had seen Katharine and met her, what did you imagine she would be like, this young woman, 27-year-old woman of conscience, who. How dodo they join the dots? Theres no doubt. ED VULLIAMY: Well, he was the political editor at the time, who was giving me a lot of trouble over getting my cooked intelligence story into the paper. I had, you know, encounters with Blair. AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. You know, we had it in October 2002. We continue our conversation now with Katharine Gun, the whistleblower and former employee of GCHQ.
Jean Carson On Matlock,
Former Wbal Radio Talk Show Hosts,
Articles W