In a year that the U.S. president is accused of pressuring foreign governments for political gain, the story behind the film Official Secrets seems particularly timely. 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[In real life] I saw the email, I immediately thought, 'Oh, my God, this is shocking.' Taking Vitamin D each day could cut your chances of getting dementia, study claims. 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.". Yet here was a story that had the capacity to derail the war altogether. The editorial position should never be that. Iran, of course, isn't interested in dealing with him. Not mine or The Observer's finest hour, has to be said. Did that change your approach to presenting the film knowing that this was actually going to be somewhat of a surprise to people? Sixteen years ago, I became headline news after I leaked an internal email from GCHQ, the communications intelligence gathering centre near Cheltenham. Since 2003, my life and Gun's have continued to cross from time to time. I became a mother, we moved countries and I have come to terms with that year of my life, though it will always define me in some ways. The memo from Frank Koza, chief of staff at the "regional targets" section of the National Security Agency, GCHQ's sister organisation in the US, remains shocking in its implications for British sovereignty. "I think part of the reason Gavin included it was just to kind of share that thought process.". [In the movie, Gun says I dont work for the government, I work for the people.]. 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. "But the more I think about what happened, the more angry and frustrated I get about the fact that nobody acted on intelligence. Or, in this case, when the Office of Special Plans was set up, youve got Feith and someone like Abram Shulsky, whose philosophy of intelligence is very different. 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. And in her case, she risked both her job and her freedom and whatever you think of her politically, I think that takes some guts. But she said she would still be prepared to give evidence to the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war. Iraq All Over Again? '", 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. Neither my friends nor my family knew what I did all day. 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. My job had been to listen to Chinese communications, translate them from Mandarin to English and produce reports for different government departments. So, she began to feel uncomfortable in the work she was doing at that point. 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. Not only was the cable the most sensitive ever to be disclosed on either side of the Atlantic, it was also unique in its timing. I believe that all of this should have been formally acknowledged as part of the history of the second Gulf War. 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. That kind of propaganda has to stop. And just coming from my perspective, the press, because a lot of this is a story about the press, and how they handle it. 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. Some called her a traitor; others I admitted the leak and my life was turned upside down. Spoilers to follow as well. Unfortunately, perhaps, I have a conscience and my dishonesty gnawed at me persistently until the next day, when I confessed. An insider with courage. 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 So important was this email, I knew it might even derail the case that Tony Blair was making for joining the Americans in an invasion. So, that's where we had to go for WMD. The invasion was a huge blow, says Gun. "I never aligned myself specifically with the anti-war movement. But I know some folks because of films I made like Eye in the Sky, and before that I made a film called Rendition. David Dayen is the Prospects executive editor. Because it's just an Executive Branch trying to grab power as an authoritarian. Katharine Gun, a British former government employee, faced two years imprisonment in England for the crime of telling the truth. This and her other writings about intelligence issues have been critically acclaimed. What do I do? And that was my way in. So she went along to this interview, and she was 28. Perhaps they don't trust him to keep his word. Katharine Gun, a shy and studious 28-year-old who spent her days listening in to obscure Chinese intercepts, decided to tell the world about a secret plan by the US government to spy on the United Nations. 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. He is just way out there in a whole other realm. She said, I thought that might be quite interesting and exciting. At some point, as you probably know, Bush and Rumsfeld decided to bypass the CIA and take out that Office of Special Plans. 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. 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. And I didnt have work where I was. Theres not a lot of work for translators; shes a Mandarin translator in England. But, did it change the way I approached it? When Official Secrets received its British premiere at Londons BFI Film Festival earlier this month, I was determined to wear something that held a special meaning and settled on a dress by an Iraqi designer. It is to say that we need to know the truth behind the decisions to act or not to act. Gavin Hood: Hes not in journalism. 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. So here we are in rehearsal, and we're talking one day about the look. KatharineGun did not stop the war,but was it all entirely in vain? And I did the same for the journalists and the lawyers and everybody. We may earn a commission from these links. This is a special case because this story is very little-known in the United States. David Dayen: As someone who works on a magazine, it's the ultimate copyediting failure. Then, the following Monday, I printed out a copy of the email, folded it up, and tucked it carefully in my bag. David Dayen: No problem. That's really the simplest question: When do you speak up? I was arrested for a breach of section one of the Official Secrets Act 1989 and held overnight in a cell in the basement of the Cheltenham Police headquarters. Liberty, the civil rights organisation, and Ben Emmerson QC had already agreed to defend me and we prepared for trial. David Dayen: Just the notion that the paper would say, we're for the war, that was their editorial position. His philosophy comes from a military intelligence model, which actually, by the time you go to war, now it's about winning. Gavin Hood: After the spellcheck. The story of Katharine Gun, a whistle-blower who exposed NSA spying in the lead-up to the Iraq War, gets the Hollywood treatment. So I said goodbye to my mom and moved to America. 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. Healthy mother-of-two, 32, collapsed and died from brain bleed while she led fitness bounce class. 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. 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.. There's an obvious scene of the immigration deportation. It was written in technical language, but the meaning was clear enough: the Americans were asking around 100 people in GCHQ to gather information from the communications made by diplomats from six nations Angola, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Chile, Guinea and Pakistan all which were then sitting on the United Nations Security Council. Gun, a translator with the British intelligence service known as Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), received a document just before the war from an NSA manager, seeking British intelligence support in spying on members of the UN Security Council, to effectively blackmail them into voting for a second resolution that would make legal the invasion of Iraq. President Bush visits the National Security Agency in Fort Meade, Maryland, January 25, 2006. (Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images). In fact, I had no idea what was going on. That seems like the central undercurrent that is playing throughout the entire film. So important was this email, I knew it might even derail the case that Tony Blair was making for joining the Americans in an invasion. ", Left: Dave Benett/Getty. 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. None of the Government reports into the war acknowledged it, nor did the history books. Gavin Hood: There is a kind of cognitive dissonance. 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. 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.". 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. But Katharine only ever leaked this one memo. 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." Ten years ago, a young Mandarin specialist at GCHQ, the government's surveillance centre in Cheltenham, did something extraordinary. Would you risk your job? By printing off the memo, putting it in her handbag and taking it home, she was already committing a serious breach of the Official Secrets Act. And she thought she wouldnt get caught. Ed, I know some people have said that Rhys Ifans [who plays Vulliamy] is slightly over the top. The truth is that I didnt know who Katharine Gun was until my producer Ged Doherty called me up one day, we made Eye In The Sky together, and said, Have you ever heard of Katharine Gun? Thats one of those moments where you think: Sounds like I ought to have, but I hadnt. And I know whose throat it really sticks in, is [British journalist] Ed Vulliamy, who I adore. Us, in any situation, wherever you work, I thought that's what this timeless about it. Throughout her own court case, what only a few knew was that she was also fighting for Yet I do think Keira perfectly captures the strain I was under, the isolation and fear. Hood said that this was a purposeful choice by Knightley. But that shouldn't be the philosophy pre-war when you're trying to decide whether to go to war. And that I think was the motivation. Donald Trump also is saying he doesn't want war, which is probably true. So, to find that it would be dramatised on the big screen was as wonderfully welcome as it was astonishing. The decision to leak it was almost instant I felt I had no choice. Then the most almighty cacophony erupted, a roar so loud we could barely hear to speak. Actually, there were two incidents at sea, blamed originally on the North Vietnamese. 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. 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. What might, IKeira Knightley, feel if I'm sitting at my desk and this happened to me?" 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. It's tough, the laws here are even stricter than in the UK. 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. This content is imported from youTube. Keira said no one knows Katharine, and that's not an insult to Katharine. 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. Right: Entertainment One, Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. Unfortunately. He runs a media charity. As the working day came to close, I tried to project a sense of calm I didnt feel, walked out of the gates and put the incriminating email in the post. When I was a young law student, we studied the American Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Copyright 2023 | The American Prospect, Inc. | All Rights Reserved, The Alt-Labor Chronicles: Americas Worker Centers, Official Secrets: A Conversation With Director Gavin Hood. The truth was that in April of 2002, the two world leaders secretly had agreed on a plan to take out Saddam, all the while giving speeches insisting that the only motivation for even considering war was that horrific stockpile of deadly weapons. WebThe Katharine Gun Case. When Katharine Gun came across a memo while working for the British government in 2003, her whole world changed. Look at what happened to Reality Winner in this country. The only thing that we altered in that is that I didnt have time to tell it for as long as it went on. As Bright noted, however, what we see in the movie is close to the real events. And I thought this is going to end in the worst civil war. 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