I grew up in Taiwan, which was a military dictatorship. We didnt talk about politics much. These folksbecause there are two legal ways you can go to war in international law. Katharine Teresa Gun (ne Harwood;[1] born 1974) is a British linguist who worked as a translator for the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). But this gets out, and suddenly you see it on the front page of The Observer when you go to buy, what, milk in the morning for you and your husband. It just means that the job is even more difficult than it was before. Keira Knightley as Katharine Gun in the film Official Secrets. Iraq now, nightmare. What's more, her decision and movement to expose lies about the Iraq invasion made it be titled as the courageous and vital leak as per Democracy Now. Inside the world of ministers' secrets", "Iraq war whistleblower's trial 'was halted due to national security threat', "Official Secrets: A Conversation With Director Gavin Hood", "Official Secrets review Keira Knightley excels in Iraq war whistleblower drama", "15 Years Later: How U.K. Whistleblower Katharine Gun Risked Everything to Leak a Damning Iraq War Memo", "Film on British whistleblower's life to hit Turkish theaters", "Whistleblowerin Katharine Gun - "Ich wrde es wieder tun", "Sundance 2019: Premieres Include Harvey Weinstein Docu, Mindy Kaling, Dr. Ruth, UK Spies, Miles Davis & Ted Bundy", "Daniel Ellsberg speaking about Katharine Gun", In 2003, This U.K. Whistleblower Almost Stopped the Iraq Invasion. I was very concerned about joining any kind of organisation like Stop the War, and being used as a focal point or something. KATHARINE GUN: Need I say more? Read More: Is Official Secrets a True Story? And yet this rather shy 30-year-old leaked details of an alleged plot to bug UN delegates before the Iraq war and was sacked from her . 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. I felt awful. That accountability is key. [12] At the time, the reasons for the Attorney-General to drop the case were murky. Katharine Gun outside the Old Bailey after charges had been dropped against her, 2004. Strange Hollywood person. diamond a ranch new mexico hunting using the weber burger press what does it mean when a willie wagtail follows you. We can all have a view on Saddam Hussein and whether he should be deposed or not. After competing in the singing competition, she launched an acting career and was . Consider donating here. [12] The Guardian newspaper had reported plans to drop the case the previous week. You know, youre the attorney general. I think I found like the missing piece. Anyway, thats why the scene. And all we were focused on was what might it felt like in this moment to have been Katharine. Many wonder whether Guns young daughter has seen the film or been told of the importance of her mothers extraordinary actions. AMY GOODMAN: But what caused you to say no? Gun is not active on social media and occasionally participates in small-scale conferences and discussions pertaining to politics. As of 2019[update] she has lived in Turkey with her husband and daughter for several years. 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. And that mattered, because, for all their faults, it seems to me that Tony Blair and George Bush understood that if they were caught out in a lie, that was a problem for them. Your defense becomes: It was necessary to break the law in order to achieve a higher purpose, which is the saving of human life. Authorities had attempted to deport Yasar back to the Middle East. I am currently reading a book about how to blow the whistle. Timpf, 32, and Friscia, 34, tied the knot . Initially, Gun decided to teach Mandarin Chinese in Britain. We will never know. And as Martin has just said, and as Katharine put it so well in the film, you know, wars, unlike football and basketball games, do not end when the whistle blows. Well, extremely. And we had to sit and wait for two hours while they winged it down from London. Youre the guy who got the goods on the author of the memo in the NSA, who wrote to GCHQ and said, Were going to bug the U.N. ambassadors.. 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. In Official Secrets, Gun is played by Keira Knightley while Matt Smith takes on the role of Martin Bright. He didnt know I had leaked this memo. And I was tasked to set up a website to look into this. AMY GOODMAN: Works for the attorney general. "[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. Of course he does. Now, the defense of necessity is usually used in very more simple circumstances. AMY GOODMAN: What was it called? AMY GOODMAN: No, you thought it was routine when he walked in. So give us the nutthe nutshell description of this story. No one else including myself has ever done what Gun did: tell secret truths at personal risk, before an imminent war, in time, possibly, to avert it.. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. How am I possibly going to do that? And we still dont know why the British government dropped the case. And you had a showing in San Francisco. In the very typical British manner, we just pretended we had never met, she recalled. It was shown in the Castro Theatre. And I had to thank her forI mean, you know, in totally selfish terms, helping me break the biggest story of my life. There is a sense of, Did it really happen? Is that really me?. I mean, obviously, at that point, then felt very sorry that someone had been arrested, but it was a huge relief at the time. Youre breaking the speed limit. "The U.S. government, through the NSA, was spying in violation of international law on other UN Security Council members in order to better coerce them to back the invasion of Iraq. We thought maybe it would be some crusty old senior guy from a rival agency. To see Part 1 of our discussion, go to democracynow.org. When do you first meet, you, the person who exposed this story, Martin Bright, and Katharine Gun? At the time, Katharine Gun was working for Britains Government Communications Headquarters, known as GCHQ. We still dont know who Frank Koza is, or hes still not given a public interview about about what went on. ED VULLIAMY: Its a story of endeavor, to no avail. GAVIN HOOD: And then, for five days, I interviewed Katharine and just made notes. Official Secrets is based on the actions of Brit Katharine Gun, who revealed that America had been eavesdropping on diplomats from other countries. AMY GOODMAN: Were you actually in the car with him, waiting for him to go in for his check-in? You come home. You know, the conservative estimates are 125,000 up to a million. 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. I mean, I think we did feel that we journalisticallyyou know, we could have done more as a newspaper. But as we said last night, this is the purpose of Albert Camuss great story La Peste, when Dr. Rieux is given the child dying of plague. [5] While waiting to hear whether she would be charged, Gun embarked on a postgraduate degree course in global ethics at the University of Birmingham. AMY GOODMAN: And then what happened? And so I did. Now, Martin, at this point, youve defended your story. 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? Most people do. [23] Daniel Ellsberg praised the swiftness and importance of Gun taking action, saying it was in some ways more significant than his own whistleblowing on the Vietnam War. GAVIN HOOD: This amazing lawyer, with great dignityElizabeth Wilmshurst, whos in the movie, Ralph Fiennes playing Ben Emmersonhas the cup of tea with her. AMY GOODMAN: Martin, you went on to work with Tony Blair, didnt you? Shes not wearing tons of makeup. MARTIN BRIGHT: We didI tell you what, though, we did feel that we had failed. is a 501(c)3 non-profit news organization. [5], On 13 November 2003, Gun was charged with an offence under section 1 of the Official Secrets Act 1989. Hood uses chemistry among each character to bring them to life. What I did is a very unusual thing to do, because the results are not generally good. Youre terrified. Im on the whole a fairly shy person, she confessed in an interview. Does he try to treat it? 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. KATHARINE GUN: No, nothing atwell, they said they were arresting me on suspicion of breaking the Official Secrets Act. They said, Plead out., AMY GOODMAN: We dont want you to go to jail for years. 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. Katharine Gun leaked that memo to the Observer, in the belief that the revelation of the proposed bugging and blackmail tactics might be enough to stop the war. Ahead of a new film, Official Secrets, the GCHQ worker who tried to prevent the 2003 invasion of Iraq recalls those feverish days and their consequences Keira Knightley on playing whistleblower Katharine Gun: Iraq was the first time Id been politically engaged. It opens on August 30th. This was all cooked up, unpublished and. KATHARINE GUN: Yeah. [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]. 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. 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. 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. The woman in her 20s attempted to stop the war and firmly stood to her truthful morals. AMY GOODMAN: So, the Daily Mail, very sympathetic also to President Trump. Then we see her become this woman who's starting to really know herself and starting to try and identify her own feminine being and trying to find her own place in the boardroom as a woman, as an entity, as a sister and . In April 2020, Gun was set to appear as a speaker at the 14th edition of the International Journalism Festival, but the event was canceled in February of the same year due to COVID-19. But it may say more about the BBC than it does about him, that with this track record you can get to the top. ED VULLIAMY: Thank you. As of 2020[update] Gun lives in Turkey and Britain. The second act of the movie is concerned with the internal newspaper politics of that decision. ED VULLIAMY: But my point is not against Mr. Ahmed. AMY GOODMAN: But so, did you have any conversations with the former prime minister at the time, Tony Blair? GAVIN HOOD: Almost a million. AMY GOODMAN: And then what happened? A very good book by Britains most decorated journalist, called Nick Davies, called Flat Earth Newsits about the British press, but it applies everywhererealized that actually the then-editors of our paper were effectively accountable to the Tony Blair enforcement machine. It was a very big audience, lovely, lovely theater. Was she immediately frightened of the consequences? Among them were Reverend Jesse Jackson, Daniel Ellsberg (the US government official who leaked the Pentagon Papers), and Congressman Dennis Kucinich. So, you are there standing alone in the dock. He gets more and more pressure from Blair. At first they dont name you, but then they do. So, was that Frank Koza? MARTIN BRIGHT: I did, yes. And then I went on to interview Martin and Ed and then Ben Emmerson, the lawyer. Gun was outraged after she learned - as part of her job with GCHQ - that the United States wanted . You know, my initial instinct was Ive got to remain anonymous. The legal case against Gun was eventually dropped by the British government in 2004, after her lawyer, Ben Emmerson QC (played in the film with fabulous charisma by Ralph Fiennes), threatened to use disclosure to put the legal basis of the war itself on trial. I mean, we had imagined all sorts of things about who our source might be. MARTIN BRIGHT: Yes, we had a great, a dramatic moment at the Q&A session. We pay respect by giving voice to social justice, acknowledging our shared history and valuing the cultures of First Nations. These were the six "swing nations" on the UN Security Council that could determine whether the UN approved the invasion of Iraq. What were your thoughts then? AMY GOODMAN: This is the NSA guy who wrote the memo. AMY GOODMAN: So, Katharine, as all of this is unfolding, the U.S. and Britain bomb Iraq. Yes. Ralph Fiennes plays Ben Emmerson. And I had already not been able to eat for about 24 hours. Katharine Gun - who's played by Keira Knightley in a forthcoming film - blew the whistle on a dodgy scheme by the American government. Her father had studied Chinese at Durham University and now teaches at Tunghai University in the city of Taichung, central Taiwan. So I was in a dreadful state. [16], Her husband, Yaar Gn,[17][18] is a Turkish Kurd. Oh, yeah. The film stars Ma. But deep inside me, I didnt feel guilty. Were also joined by Martin Bright and Ed Vulliamy, the two journalists who reported Guns revelations in The Observer newspaper, at a time when the paper was editorially openly supporting the Iraq invasion. And I can remember sitting back and thinking, This guy is not all there. I said, I think Ive got a scoop, Martin. MARTIN BRIGHT: Yeah, who wrote the memo. 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. There are lots of loose ends here still. Plead out. 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 . I do not gather intelligence so the government can lie to the British people., Sixteen years have passed since Katharine Gun said those words, but they still ring in the air. Please do your part today. Keira Knightley plays Katharine Gun in the film Official Secrets (Photo: eOne) Now living quietly in Turkey, Gun has been thrust into the global spotlight once again . 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 . I mean, not the greatest decision of my life, I have to say. Almost a million Iraqis. When Brights story originally landed there were concentrated efforts to rubbish it in the gung-ho parts of the media. No need to prove anything further. Sorry, no pun intended, Katharine. Details at membership.theguardian.com. In this episode of Schenck Talks Bonhoeffer, TDBI Founder and President, Rev. 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. [5] Gun heard no more of the email, and had all but forgotten about it until Sunday 2 March, when she saw it reproduced on the front page of The Observer newspaper. AMY GOODMAN: So, theyre processing him. I wonder what she made of the scattershot download methods of Edward Snowden and Julian Assange? How did she go about rebuilding her life? So, where is Gun now? And after about three weeks of this meeting these extraordinary people, I said to Jed, I think I think I would like to do this. And thats where the story came from. Film-makers generally like to glamorise newspaper offices, making them All the Presidents Men hothouses of high-level argument and intrigue. But it was, yeah, a moment of great humility, actually. So, they immediatelywell, first of all, my manager said, What would you like to do? And I said, Well, pfff, what can I do? You know, we have to tell internal security. And they failed, in part, I believe, because Katharine Gun leaked that memo. Something like. 101 years old Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson was an American mathematician whose orbital mechanics calculations as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first and subsequent crewed spaceflights in the United States. Which agency was it? Thats [inaudible]. She is played, with steely English resolve, by Keira Knightley. Ben Emmerson is. Katharine Teresa Gun (ne Harwood; born 1974) is a British linguist who worked as a translator for the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). You were just waiting. But on the other hand, its just a deeply personal story aboutand I hope Katharine will forgive me saying thisabout an ordinary person, like one of us, who does something extraordinary. Its a paper that supported fascism between the wars, and sort of still does, in its way. Naturally, people are curious to know more about this courageous linguist who stood her ground even as political heavyweights descended upon her. I think its important for people to find that truth and follow through on it, Gun opined, and its certainly worth remembering. Official Secrets, directed by Gavin Hood, is the third in a loose trilogy of political . But you areis this part of the film true, where you have the authorities come in and say, Were questioning everyone, because someone here did this.. KATHARINE GUN: Actually, time-wise, I was bailed for eight months. Why did you come in? I think the number isand forgive me, I should have the figurethree-and-a-half thousand British and American soldiers, 37,000 wounded. [12] A government spokesman said that the decision to drop the case had been made before the defence's demands had been submitted. She said, you know, its ironic that here we are in the age when women now have the vote, and theyre supposed to beand were all supposed to be equal, and yet so many roles are still about women being the sidekick, women being raped, so much violence, use ityou know, a woman whos in jeopardy. Democracy Now! You know, these things happen. I hope, when shes ready for this story, she will. Theyre going to send him back to Turkey. How dodo they join the dots? Jed didnt sort of put the two of us together. [14] On the day of the court hearing, Gun said, "I'm just baffled in the 21st century we as human beings are still dropping bombs on each other as a means to resolve issues. It is not often that a persons character is revealed in two sentences. Its the intelligence agency, like the NSA, the National Security Agency, in the U.S. She leaked a memo revealing that the United States was collaborating with Britain in collecting sensitive information on United Nations Security Council members, countries, in order to pressure the members, the ambassadors, into supporting the Iraq invasion of March 2003. UPDATED with latest attendees, livestream link: President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden, as well as Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, will attend Saturday's . We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work. And we worked five, six hours every day. Whistleblower Katharine Gun and journalist Martin Bright are interviewed for their new movie Official Secrets for the film's LFF screening. AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. ED VULLIAMY: Yes, the people who were giving Martin traction to get this story out, and who effectively, according to Mr. Daviess book, censored mine, about the cooking-up of the WMD and the fact that we knew Saddam didnt have any. The relationships that form as a result of Gun's acting are quite inspiring. The repercussions of a lot of what happened are still being felt today.. Get Democracy Now! And a fireman does that if he bashes your house down to get to you. AMY GOODMAN: So, before the time of the trial, Katharine, youthey have clamped down on you. So I was . In the very typical British manner, we just pretended we had never met.. And I managed to get through to his assistant. 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. And the case was dropped. Anyway. The movie tells the story of Katharine Gun (played by Keira Knightley), a translator with the U.K.'s GCHQ who, in 2003, leaked top secret documents to journalist Martin Bright (Matt Smith) that . Ten years ago, a young Mandarin specialist at GCHQ, the government's surveillance centre in Cheltenham, did something extraordinary. And Mr. Ahmed is now the editorial director of the BBC, the revered BBC. 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. During the season 5 finale of American Idol, Katharine McPhee was named the runner-up against winner Taylor Hicks. There is a Guardian Live preview screening with Katharine Gun, Gavin Hood and Martin Bright on 12 October. 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. The implosion continues. In a BBC interview with Jeremy Paxman, she said that she had not raised the matter with staff counsellors as she "honestly didn't think that would have had any practical effect". Also with us, the director of Official Secrets, Gavin Hood. Iraq war whistleblower Katharine Gun: Truth always matters. And really, you know, she had so many questions for me, and she really genuinely wanted to know about the whole situation. The author advocates anonymity. 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. I was aware I was doing something I wasnt supposed to be doing. You work for the British government, her interrogator said, with a sneer. Do you think shed meet with me? Because I think we were both a little skeptical of each other. delivered to your inbox every day! AMY GOODMAN: You mean period dramas of strong women have to be a hundred years ago. KATHARINE GUN: Oh, yeah. [20] After the charges against her were dropped in 2004, she found it difficult to find a new job. Shes ordinary. And they attempt to deport your husband, who is a? 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. Truth has a habit of finding a voice, however. KATHARINE GUN: And also, Im justwell, whether its natural inclination or whether its what was kind of drummed into us at GCHQ, but it was, you know, this the sense of being private and not trusting journalists or people who are trying to ferret out information from you. The law requires you to. KATHARINE GUN: Oh, no. I took up teaching. 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?. Its so great to have you all with us. KATHARINE GUN: Oh, yes, absolutely. Somebody says, Lord Goldsmith, the defense to your charge against Katharine Gun is they want your documents. Case dropped. She was the real-life translator who photocopied . [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. For the American gamer, see, Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, United Nations Security Council and the Iraq War, "Whistleblowerin Katharine Gun - "Ich frchtete, sie knnten meine Gedanken lesen", "The US spymaster, the whistleblower, and the secret email she exposed", "Profile: Katherine Gun, Iraq war wistleblower", "Katharine Gun: Ten years on what happened to the woman who revealed dirty tricks on the UN Iraq war vote? [3], Katharine Harwood moved to Taiwan in 1977 with her parents, Paul and Jan Harwood. Domination, Sing Your Song: Remembering Harry Belafonte, Who Used His Stardom to Help. Katharine Gun and Martin Bright could be forgiven for fielding Hollywood's overtures with a degree of skepticism. There are plenty of opportunities here for other journalists to take up the baton and find out what really happened.
