The team of hawks circling George Bush had long wanted to take out Saddam Hussein, as did Bush. The British are quite British, you know. Gavin Hood: Hes not in journalism. 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. Director Gavin Hood Writers Sara Bernstein Gregory Bernstein Gavin Hood Stars Keira Knightley Matt Smith Matthew Goode Naturally, I was discreet. At first, I heard nothing. Everyone involved assumed the project had run into the dust, but then it appeared on the Black List, a Hollywood website for unmade film scripts, which has featured Slumdog Millionaire and The King's Speech in the past. However, the Pentagon says the US deployment is "in response to indications of heightened Iranian readiness to conduct offensive operations against US forces and our interests.". Right: Entertainment One, Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. Ten years ago, a young Mandarin specialist at GCHQ, the government's surveillance centre in Cheltenham, did something extraordinary. Enter Katharine Gun. Gavin Hood: After the spellcheck. 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. It was both exhilarating and just a little uncomfortable. Gavin Hood: Its a question of how conditioned are we to the conventional Hollywood structure. President Bush visits the National Security Agency in Fort Meade, Maryland, January 25, 2006. 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. They live on a smallholding, renting a house, in rural Turkey. Quality journalism. Id never seen anything like it. 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? Ive been impressed by the film-makers determination to stick to the facts Gavin Hood, the director, interviewed me at length over five days and I was consulted throughout the process. 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 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 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. ", As for her own story, she recognises that 10 years on it scarcely registers with the public. They're more polite to their suspects. 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. 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. 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. Across the world, millions protested the invasion of Iraq, doing their own small parts to attempt to prevent the war. Exaggerating threats to provoke a war? But the falsehoods and unnecessary wars of yesteryear likely have influenced the waning support for public institutions today. You work for the government. She thought wow, they need a Mandarin translator at GCHQ. Whistleblower and former employee of Britain's global surveillance center GCHQ (Government Communications Head Quarters) Katharine Gun smiles as she speaks to the media during a press conference February 25, 2004 in London, England. After a police interview, at which I repeated my admission, I was released on bail to await the decision of the Crown Prosecution Service. Sometimes movies can be an effective way to make forgotten stories part of our national narrative, and in that sense, Official Secrets comes not a moment too soon. Gabrielle Bruney is a writer and editor for Esquire, where she focuses on politics and culture. ", Left: Dave Benett/Getty. As the title of the film script suggests, she was "The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War". If Keira Knightleys remarkable performance in Official Secrets can help change that, the film will truly have been worthwhile. If it was, who cleared it to be passed to GCHQ? 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. We need another Katharine Gun. "I think part of the reason Gavin included it was just to kind of share that thought process.". Katharine Gun and Martin Bright could be forgiven for fielding Hollywoods overtures with a degree of skepticism. 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. If I was writing this as fiction, I need a much longer court case, right? 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." To this day, however, there has been barely a mention of the year I spent living under a cloud. "Still no regrets," she said. He was actually gone for three days. 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.. I don't think she thought they would deport her husband, I really don't think she thought that. So right there, you are pulling out the highlights," said Hood of the key issue with making Official Secrets. We go to the canteen and we talk.. 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. Id immediately be transported back to GCHQ and that email the anger I felt and the decisions I made. WebAttempts were made by the authorities to deport her husband, who grew disillusioned with Britain. She was horrified and leaked the email to the Observer. It turned out a copyeditor at The Observer had run the memo through spellcheck before printing it.]. Following the incident, Gun struggled to find work that she David Dayen is the Prospects executive editor. That's the memo. 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. We even got as far as the Old Bailey. 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. I got that from Yasar. 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. When I got to the interview thats when they told me that its for GCHQ, I didnt know what GCHQ did. So, I think she entered the world out of a sort of strange curiosity. 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.' And for her, this was too much. Actually, there were two incidents at sea, blamed originally on the North Vietnamese. 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. A manufactured provocation. I admitted the leak and my life was turned upside down. But my point is simply this: The underpinnings of this country matter. And I went, Oh, that's how much that superhero myth is in our system. We didn't end up making it with that studio. Most whistleblowers leak after the event to expose perceived wrongdoing. This was her first or second week at the paper. So, she began to feel uncomfortable in the work she was doing at that point. 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 Do you vote, do you analyze who you should vote for or do you just take it for granted? 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." Gun disclosed details of the spying operation as it was happening to stop something she viewed as terrible happening in the future. I am an American citizen; I have a strange accent but Ive been here 25 years; my kids were born here. Rishi Sunak is urgently reviewing his private exchanges with Matt Hancock after bombshell leak of ex-Health 'Drinks cold in fridge at DH!' Hood said that this was a purposeful choice by Knightley. Had the film appeared any earlier, however, I dont think Id have been able to watch it, let alone help the makers. So, Im not really answering your question well, but her feeling was just: Now I dont belong in this company. A thorough investigation began as soon as the staff started arriving at GCHQ on the Monday morning. What did you think was going to happen? 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. The editorial position should never be that. He loves a battle, when it's done with words, boasts, and threats. 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. After the charges against her were dropped in 2004, she found it difficult to find a new The decision to leak it was almost instant I felt I had no choice. Please help keep the independent journalism of Common Dreams strong. 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. 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? 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? She was a spythe communications she translated had been obtained covertly, but she did the work in the interest of protecting Britain. As Bright noted, however, what we see in the movie is close to the real events. I was suddenly free and bewildered. This is a special case because this story is very little-known in the United States. 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. The work shed signed up to do was covered by British law, and would be something to do with whatever that was necessary to keep British lives safe. The memo, however represented the actual twisting of diplomatic arms in order to secure a war which [was] based on lies., But it also represented an opportunity to show the world the tactics American and British officials were willing to employ in their push for an invasion. My shock turned to anger as the significance sank in. Anyway, the Office of Special Plans and Abram Shulsky make an interesting Wikipedia read, it won't take you very long. 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. Some of those same birds are still flapping wings in the skies above Washington. After the initial flurry of media interest, I was left to figure out how to move on with my life and that proved hard. "Financially it's the toughest," she said. Iraq All Over Again? Amazing lady, shes still a journalist. 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. He really wouldnt; that scene in the movie really happened. What It Feels Liketo Survive a Chemical Attack. According to the Guardian, "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.". I answered an advert in The Guardian newspaper for a translator. Because it's just an Executive Branch trying to grab power as an authoritarian. Because it was toughthe guy wouldnt print his stuff. British Secret Service Officer Katharine, then a young bride, risked everything to leak details of the Bush-Blair plan to coerce (possibly blackmail) members of the UN Security Council in order to win their votes to legalize invading Iraq. 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. And she thought she wouldnt get caught. So, I guess we all have a threshold. Gavin Hood: Yes, it really sticks in my throat too. Im gratified, too, that the film shows the love and support my husband gave me throughout this ordeal. Today, I believe the Act serves as an illiberal, draconian piece of law, little more than a weapon of the state to deter any disclosure, no matter how much in the public interest it might be. Iran, of course, isn't interested in dealing with him. Direct to your inbox. I had, of course, signed the Official Secrets Act, content in the knowledge I was working within the law for Britains protection. The days and weeks dragged agonisingly by. So, to find that it would be dramatised on the big screen was as wonderfully welcome as it was astonishing. 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. 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. Progressive values. Problem number two: Do you shut up or do you speak up? 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. 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. Perhaps it was no wonder that Tony Blairs government decided to abandon the case without offering any evidence. 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. Who knows whether they would've bent those other nations to vote for a resolution. The case and the resulting anxiety never seemed far away. And then, she said when she got in therenow bear in mind that she still is bound by the Official Secrets Act. I did feel like, Well, I failed.. We typically, in the movie business, ever since Joseph Campbell wrote The Hero of A Thousand Facesand Im not meaning to be sarcastic because thats a great piece of work, but it spoiled the idea that every development executive is reading these books because the hero we meet and then something upsets their world and the antagonist that must equal the hero, and eventually we go through these loops and the hero triumphs in the end. But again, I cant help but make some small jokes about these things. 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? But George W. Bush did something that, thankfully, Trump hasnt pulled off yet: He took us to war. Donald Trump also is saying he doesn't want war, which is probably true. To tell too much more of the story would spoil the film, but one part of its ending is clear. She wasnt charged for eight months a gruelling period which is depicted as just a few Every product was carefully curated by an Esquire editor. 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. 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. Our institutions matter. 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. 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. 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. So we start with hair, and then we start with glasses, and Keira says, "Gavin, what if I just was me?" Or at least, she could have been. I even thought, naively, Id be able to keep my anonymity. The only thing that we altered in that is that I didnt have time to tell it for as long as it went on. To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page. 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