ED VULLIAMY: Mr. Alton, screechy, ultra-right-wing. You know, the conservative estimates are 125,000 up to a million. AMY GOODMAN: And so, you had to sell this. 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. And I dont know how authentic it appeared to the person interviewing me, but I just felt terrible. And they attempt to deport your husband, who is a? AMY GOODMAN: That was 2014. [24] In July 2019, in a lengthy interview on the US program Democracy Now!, Gun, Gavin Hood (the film's director), and Martin Bright and Ed Vulliamy (the journalists who broke the story of the leaked memo) discussed the events that the film describes. You know, I felt totally at ease in her company. How did she go about rebuilding her life? Following the incident, Gun struggled to find work that she loved, and her husband had grown disillusioned with Britain. AMY GOODMAN: Well, explain that. Theyre watching, you know, video games and bombs landing on Baghdadshock and awe. And all we were focused on was what might it felt like in this moment to have been Katharine. Plead out. MARTIN BRIGHT: I did, yes. And then I went on to interview Martin and Ed and then Ben Emmerson, the lawyer. It opens on August 30th. [5] In February, she travelled to London to take part in the demonstration against the impending invasion of Iraq. 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. He says, Wait a minute. Shes not wearing tons of makeup. AMY GOODMAN: So, theyre processing him. [12] At the time, the reasons for the Attorney-General to drop the case were murky. AMY GOODMAN: They said you could have pled. Dont just swallow what politicians tell you. The day before the trial, Gun's defence team had asked the government for any records of legal advice about the lawfulness of the war that it had received during the run-up to the war. You know, youre not waiting for someone for hours in makeup. KATHARINE GUN: Well, OK, I know I was guilty in the facts of the matter. The author advocates anonymity. It was shown in the Castro Theatre. You authorized her prosecution. What does she hope people will take from the film? But, yes, I did. I was teaching Mandarin in the local college in Cheltenham. 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.. GAVIN HOOD: These are representatives at the U.N.. So, no, I mean, I didnt want to say I was guilty when I didnt feel guilty. AMY GOODMAN: the person in charge of news. But it is tempting to believe that is the case with Katharine Gun. Gun is a singular presence, and she answers with characteristic care, speaking slightly haltingly, weighing her words. So, 600,000 Iraqi people died. It was a very big audience, lovely, lovely theater. 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 . Now, Martin, at this point, youve defended your story. AMY GOODMAN: And Alton went from The Observer and ultimately made his way, ED VULLIAMY: Via variousvia Rupert Murdochs Times, yes. You know, we had it in October 2002. Does she tell her story when she meets new people? And they said they would try their best. You know, this is hundreds of thousands of people killed. I mean, we certainly did meet in the courthouse. And she hadnt said why she had resigned. AMY GOODMAN: So then you have Scotland Yard taking over. As of 2020[update] Gun lives in Turkey and Britain. And he says, Well, I called Elizabeth Wilmshurst, who is the assistant attorney general, who had resigned. These were the six "swing nations" on the UN Security Council that could determine whether the UN approved the invasion of Iraq. [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. Youre a bit, AMY GOODMAN: So, there is an uproar. And I can remember sitting back and thinking, This guy is not all there. Photo: Kevin RC Wilson. And so, we went down together to internal security, and they called Scotland Yard. Film-makers generally like to glamorise newspaper offices, making them All the Presidents Men hothouses of high-level argument and intrigue. Now, the defense of necessity is usually used in very more simple circumstances. There is a sense of, Did it really happen? Is that really me?. 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. Koza's email requested aid in a secret operation to bug the United Nations offices of six nations: Angola, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Chile, Guinea, and Pakistan. I mean, obviously, at that point, then felt very sorry that someone had been arrested, but it was a huge relief at the time. MARTIN BRIGHT: Yeah, I must say, when I found out how young she was, it did take me by surprise, and the fact that she was a translator. So a very big story got crushed very quickly. I hadnt realised the extent to which Martin in particular had gone out on a limb for this at the paper. We will never know. Given my experience I would want to hear what happened from the horses mouth, I think.. AMY GOODMAN: So, before the time of the trial, Katharine, youthey have clamped down on you. And the other way is the good, old-fashioned self-defense. Some people have very low tolerance of wrongdoing, whether it is fiddling expenses, or whatever. And so I did. Be consistent. Good for him. She then went on to get a Masters degree in Global Ethics. Starring Elle Fanning in the title role, the show follows the rise of Catherine as she arrives in Russia as a teenager, naively excited for her arranged wedding night with Peter III (Nicholas . In this episode of Schenck Talks Bonhoeffer, TDBI Founder and President, Rev. KATHARINE GUN: Well, hes Turkish, from a Kurdish background, yeah. Guardian Australia acknowledges the traditional owners and custodians of Country throughout Australia and their connections to land, waters and community. Get Democracy Now! With no life insurance and unpaid maternity leave on the horizon, Mary Katharine forged ahead with a singular conviction. Katharine Teresa Gun (ne Harwood;[1] born 1974) is a British linguist who worked as a translator for the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). I mean, this has been going on for a number of years, and it always sort of ended up kind of petering out, so, GAVIN HOOD: Other people had approached you before. Now, that doesnt mean we shouldnt try to hold them to account. AMY GOODMAN: How rarely a woman actress, an actor, gets to play, you know, the protagonist, the solid, strong hero, Gavin. 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 . GAVIN HOOD: Ben Emmerson. Maybe? When Katharine Gun came across a memo while working for the British government in 2003, her whole world changed. Gun has spoken at the 51Fest and conferences arranged by organizations such as the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). [20] After the charges against her were dropped in 2004, she found it difficult to find a new job. Her whistleblowing was not enough to change the path of history, of course, and her last-gasp act of courage was all but forgotten in the brutal "shock and awe" of war. I met her in August in Durham, when she was on a brief visit to see her father. This is a rush transcript. It was very difficult initially. Ben Emmerson decides the way to defend Katharine Gun is to ask for Lord Goldsmiths documents. They were just going to pick him up, and took him out. And, with great respect, I think he did. GAVIN HOOD: This amazing lawyer, with great dignityElizabeth Wilmshurst, whos in the movie, Ralph Fiennes playing Ben Emmersonhas the cup of tea with her. 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. We knew for sure. 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. 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 . 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. 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. Look at those bombs falling on Baghdad. AMY GOODMAN: Now, he goes in for a regular check-in. I ended up, bizarrely, teaching a couple of my former colleagues at GCHQ. How often does she go through that fateful weekend, where she wrestled with her conscience after seeing the memo? One foundered for lack of funds, another strayed further from the truth than she would have liked. Katharine Teresa Gun (ne Harwood; born 1974) is a British linguist who worked as a translator for the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). The diplomats were due to vote on a second United Nations resolution on the prospective 2003 invasion of Iraq. ED VULLIAMY: Yes. And so, theyre first prize was get the United Nations Security Council to pass a resolution saying that we, as a collective United Nations, are going to take out Saddam Hussein. We know this because Katharine Gun leaked a short 300-word NSA memo on this shortly before the invasion. They may have chosen to push those boundaries, but they did know the difference, and they knew that it mattered if they were caught. 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. 2023 Cinemaholic Inc. All rights reserved. The comedown after they dropped the case, and trying to recover from that, was quite stressful.. When do you first meet, you, the person who exposed this story, Martin Bright, and Katharine Gun? The last few hectic days have left her relieved and happy, she says, but completely uncertain as to her future. I think most people have red lines that they wont cross. ED VULLIAMY: Its a story of endeavor, to no avail. The argument was then subsumed by the war. You're KATHARINE GUN: . delivered to your inbox every day! MARTIN BRIGHT: OK, youre making me feel really bad about going to work for him now. is katharine gun still married to yasar. And the memo was like this big red flag as soon as I saw it.. But yeah, I mean, I was hugely impressed. And I had to thank her forI mean, you know, in totally selfish terms, helping me break the biggest story of my life. All rights reserved. Among them were Reverend Jesse Jackson, Daniel Ellsberg (the US government official who leaked the Pentagon Papers), and Congressman Dennis Kucinich. 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? Its millions. I didnt want to be that. MARTIN BRIGHT: Well, they didnt even say why. AMY GOODMAN: So, Katharine, as all of this is unfolding, the U.S. and Britain bomb Iraq. AMY GOODMAN: And so, what did you do when they said, Were going to take each one of you into a room.. How dodo they join the dots? He would have had to have the authority of Lord Goldsmith to prosecute. Yeah, so it was panic stations after that. AMY GOODMAN: Who is played in the film by? AMY GOODMAN: Whatever you tried to do didnt succeed. 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.. But lets go back to the moment. He succumbed to his wounds and Knight dragged his body downstairs, skinned him, and hung his body from a meat hook in the living room. But my closest friends stuck by me.. I was calling Nigel Jones, my MP. 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. There are almost no defenses to this act. Yes. So I saw people going in and coming out and going in and coming out. So, Lord Goldsmith decides to prosecute Katharine Gun. 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 . In the movie, her husband (Adam Bakri) is initially portrayed as a civilian, perceiving her job to be mundane. MARTIN BRIGHT: I have an abiding interest in the link between religion and conflict. KATHARINE GUN: My MP, yes, at the time. Instead, Jake suffered a fatal bicycle accident. I think the number isand forgive me, I should have the figurethree-and-a-half thousand British and American soldiers, 37,000 wounded. So, you are there standing alone in the dock. 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. And whats so marvelous about what Gavins done is to just sort of bring this back into the present. My childhood friend, for example, I remember hearing her father was on a blacklist because he had been agitating for the opposition. [5] In 1993 she began studying Japanese and Chinese at Durham University. Were on the set. GAVIN HOOD: Yes, strong women. Watching the film was like watching a case that was very similar to my own: Katharine Gun, photographed last month in Durham. Within half an hour, the case was dropped because the prosecution declined to offer evidence. Whatever you think of Kamala Harris, you can say, Which America do you want? Inside the world of ministers secrets, Iraq war whistleblowers trial was halted due to national security threat, Permanent Record by Edward Snowden review the whistleblowers memoir, 'They wanted me gone': Edward Snowden tells of whistleblowing, his AI fears and six years in Russia, I had a moral duty: whistleblowers on why they spoke up, 'You've caused an international incident': how my work mistake came back to haunt me, Fortheir eyes only: the secret stories ministers dont want you to read, Take it from a whistleblower: Chilcot's jigsaw puzzle is missing a few pieces, Hollywood beckons for whistleblower who risked jail over Iraq dirty tricks. [5], On 13 November 2003, Gun was charged with an offence under section 1 of the Official Secrets Act 1989. But a part of me thought: Damn we could have put the war on trial. And now you go back into work. In its absence, Tony Blair won another election in 2005. I was aware I was doing something I wasnt supposed to be doing. First day, what did you feel? "[12], Two years after her trial, Gun wrote an article titled "Iran: Time to Leak",[22] which asked whistleblowers to make public any information about plans for a potential war against Iran. "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. Hood uses chemistry among each character to bring them to life. 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? [5] Less than a week after the Observer story, on Wednesday 5 March, Gun confessed to her line manager at GCHQ that she had leaked the email, and was arrested. There are plenty of opportunities here for other journalists to take up the baton and find out what really happened. I felt awful. Soon after, they moved to Turkey in 2011, and for the most part, the family has stayed away from the public . [25][26] Together with journalist Peter Beaumont, Gun advised and consulted over the years it took to make the film and they are "very happy with the result.[20]. AMY GOODMAN: You succeeded in preventing his deportation. You know, these things happen. [19] And we can say that, you know, thatso, he comes back, under all this pressure. I felt awful after I denied it. "That story" concerns British whistleblower Katharine Gun, played by Keira Knightley in a film that premiered at Sundance festival in January.Fluent in Mandarin, the 28-year-old Gun was . Im sure that what Katharine felt when in 2010 we found out that Lord Goldsmith had declared the war, in his advice, illegal, must have been pretty painful for Katharine to hear, as it was for me when Congress said, I think around 2004, '05, we knew, actually, there were no weapons of mass destruction. And Ben comes up with this idea. The repercussions of a lot of what happened are still being felt today.. Shes ordinary. We thought that maybe it would be a security expert who had got wind of this, or someone, I mean, relatively senior within GCHQ who was worried about what was going on, and, you know. It was with the help of MP Nigel Jones that Gun finally managed to free Yasar, reasserting his right to stay in the UK. And I went back, and I felt worse that day at home. When Brights story originally landed there were concentrated efforts to rubbish it in the gung-ho parts of the media. The Case Against Mary Katherine Higdon 43:11. I felt that I had done the morally right thing to do. AMY GOODMAN: This is the NSA guy who wrote the memo. You know, any tiny lingering doubts we had about whether this was a sophisticated Russian forgery, as some people suggested, or, you knowwe absolutely knew that this was real. There was a feeling ofas what you felt, Ed, in this case, yeah. Powered by WordPress.com VIP. You think everyone sees on your face that youre the leaker. The trials and tribulations of daringly telling the truth and facing its consequences must certainly not be a light burden to bear. KATHARINE GUN: No, I felt a huge sense of relief after I had, you know, confessed. AMY GOODMAN: And these ambassadors are the ambassadors of? I said, I think Ive got a scoop, Martin. We still dont know who Frank Koza is, or hes still not given a public interview about about what went on. is katharine gun still married to yasar. Interview: Whistleblower Katharine Gun. So give us the nutthe nutshell description of this story. We pay respect by giving voice to social justice, acknowledging our shared history and valuing the cultures of First Nations. We could haveyou know, you always have regrets, dont you? She is also well known as a GCHQ spy. Because it offered her both a resolution, and none? I was called up on Tuesday. You get pulled over. GAVIN HOOD: By Ralph Fiennes. There is a Guardian Live preview screening with Katharine Gun, Gavin Hood and Martin Bright on 12 October. Sorry, no pun intended, Katharine. And they had already taken him down into the custody suite, which is, by the way, where I had been before. And I had already not been able to eat for about 24 hours. We thought maybe it would be some crusty old senior guy from a rival agency. "We still do not know all that happened - what GCHQ did, and why things happened," he said. It was weird. AMY GOODMAN: Were going to leave it there, and I want to thank you all so much for being with us, Katharine Gun, the whistleblower; Observer journalists at the time, Martin Bright and Ed Vulliamy; and Gavin Hood, who is the director of Official Secrets, the story of Katharine Gun revealing the lies that led to the Iraq War on both sides of the ocean, in Britain and the United States, and led to so many deaths. AMY GOODMAN: The networks, like Fox, and The Drudge Report, CNN refused to interview you, saying that this couldnt be a real memo because, unfortunately, your newspaper translated it into British. 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. And he says, I need toso, Im interviewing Ben in a pizza shop, right? There are 15 members of that council, and there are these nonpermanent members who could swing the vote in favor of an invasion of Iraq in U.N. resolution. ED VULLIAMY: But my point is not against Mr. Ahmed. Some of the information that would have been revealed at her trial, in particular Lord Goldsmiths conflicting arguments as to the legality of the invasion, did not fully emerge until the publication of the report of the Chilcot inquiry in 2016. 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. AMY GOODMAN: So you just thought this was routine. Do you think shed meet with me? Because I think we were both a little skeptical of each other. I wonder what she made of the scattershot download methods of Edward Snowden and Julian Assange? ED VULLIAMY: said on the program, I filed that story seven times. [21], Gun received the Sam Adams Award for 2003 and was supported in her case by the UK human rights pressure group Liberty and in the US by the Institute for Public Accuracy. Katharine Gun and Martin Bright could be forgiven for fielding Hollywood's overtures with a degree of skepticism. Im on the whole a fairly shy person, she confessed in an interview. Never mind the number injured. I mention those lines about working for the people rather than the government. She becomes the corporate sister-daughter, she dives into the power suit and high-waisted pants or Katharine Hepburn moment. She was 27. 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. And he was the barrister who ultimately put the case before the court, as short as that trial was, on behalf of Katharine, and came up with a truly original defense to the Official Secrets Act, which is the defense of necessity. In Turkey, close to her husbands family, Gun and her partner, Yasar, could raise their child in peace. How am I possibly going to do that? The film -- quite plausibly -- depicts the charges being dropped against Gun for the simple reason that the British government feared . The online Drudge Report used the fact that the reproduced NSA memo used English spelling to cast doubt on its veracity. I watched you last night at one of the premieres of the film, a kind of secret showing of Official Secrets. I hope when shes ready for this story, she will [see the film]. AMY GOODMAN: And, Ed, you see whats going on in this country, in the United States, not to mention where youre from, in Britain. I was very exercised about what was happening. We have sort of, you know, I want to take my country back from all those Portuguese nurses and Polish plumbers, that we really must get rid of, and sort of whats best for Britain. You know, we dont have an opposition in our country, whereas you do in yours, thank god. 4 4.Katharine Gun: Ten years on what happened to the woman who 5 5.Iraq War Whistle Blower Katharine Gun Shares Her Story | Video - PBS; 6 6.GCHQ whistleblower Katharine Gun speaks out | Daily Mail Online; 7 7.15 Years Later: How U.K. Whistleblower Katharine Gun - YouTube; 8 8.Katharine Gun & Martin Bright Interview - Official . Well, if Bush and Blair could have got a U.N. resolution, they would have had perfect cover for going to Iraq without having to bring up the WMD, the weapons of mass destruction, argument, because the whole weapons of mass destruction argument is the self-defense, that they needed a legalyou know, you do want to be going to war legally. You know, I felt vindicated. I mean, really, these people need to be held accountable for what theyve done. So her moral certainty was rooted in those formative experiences? "[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. We can all have a view on Saddam Hussein and whether he should be deposed or not. . I took up teaching. Our Daily Digest brings Democracy Now! Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. The film stars Ma. She has a younger brother who teaches in Taiwan. MARTIN BRIGHT: But once everyone did, there waswe knew that there was somethingthere was something going on. KATHARINE GUN: Need I say more? Its all so resonant. Her act of whistleblowing cost her a career as a translator at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), made her stand in a highly publicized trial for violating the Official Secrets Act, and reduced her chances of getting another job due to being an internationally recognized whistleblower. AMY GOODMAN: But once everyone did, you knew. So I tried to look for work. And we still dont know why the British government dropped the case. Shes beginning to understand the issues, but she hasnt seen it yet. Katharine Gun is the Most Important Whistleblower You've Never Heard of. [13] Speculation was rife in the media that the prosecution service had bowed to political pressure to drop the case so that any such documents would remain secret. I could not get it in. AMY GOODMAN: So, and we want to get to all that, but nowwe want to get to all that, but right now youre showing this film around the country. And nor did the story end. You have the Iraq War continuing today, 16 years after George W. Bush, knowing there were not weapons of mass destruction, invades Iraq with Britain. ED VULLIAMY: Yes. AMY GOODMAN: And then what happened?
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