So I was . 15 Years Later: How U.K. Whistleblower Katharine Gun Risked Everything MARTIN BRIGHT: Well, they didnt even say why. 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 . We're looking at the real-life political thriller of a British intelligence specialist, Katharine Gun, who risked everything to blow the whistle on U.S. dirty tricks at the United Nations in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion in 2003. So a very big story got crushed very quickly. It was a very big audience, lovely, lovely theater. [20] After the charges against her were dropped in 2004, she found it difficult to find a new job. Right? If the war was illegal and she broke the law in order to expose an illegal war and potentially save hundreds of thousands of lives, I can use this defense of necessitythats usually used in more mundane, dare I say, contextsin this great political trial., And so he says, All right, now I need to know whether the war was legal or illegal. And he says, I need to find out what Lord Goldsmiths, the attorney-generals, legal position was in the run-up to that war. And, you know, he had nothing on him. 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. Her story, which reveals what a country will do when it wants war and claims it does not, is told in an updated book and a major motion picture soon to be released Official . Iraq war whistleblower Katharine Gun: 'Truth always matters' Interview: Whistleblower Katharine Gun. The Observer team in a scene from the film, with Matt Smith, front, as home affairs editor Martin Bright. So, I thought it would be great. Iraq now, nightmare. When you think, Oh, well, I wish we tried hard with the Americanwith our American colleagues. Gun thinks she might speak out more considering the current state of political affairs and massive citizen involvement in sociopolitical issues. 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. Who is her husband? I mean, we certainly did meet in the courthouse. Gun discusses her attempt to stop the Iraq War, which is the subject of the new movie Official Secrets. We will never know. AMY GOODMAN: Works for the attorney general. [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've caused an international incident': how my work mistake came But as it happened, I wasnt called up on Monday. 'Official Secrets' - The True Story of the British Spy Film - Vice 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. 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. I mean, obviously, at that point, then felt very sorry that someone had been arrested, but it was a huge relief at the time. With me, it was this. MARTIN BRIGHT: No, it was the Tony Blair Faith Foundation. That is a tricky question, she says. But yeah, I mean, I was hugely impressed. And she said, Gavin, I dont want to wear makeup. Katharine Gun at Bow Street magistrates court in 2003 after being charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act. I wanted to go to the making of the filmKeira Knightley, did you meet with her?and also ask you, Gavin, about Keira taking on this role. And I had to thank her forI mean, you know, in totally selfish terms, helping me break the biggest story of my life. But then I thought, Well, no, I just cant go on calling in sick. So I went in, and my manager said, you know, Katharine, you look dreadful. And Mr.. You know, I felt totally at ease in her company. And I did this sort of dive. 2023 Cinemaholic Inc. All rights reserved. She was arrested and charged with breach of the Official Secrets Act. These were the six "swing nations" on the UN Security Council that could determine whether the UN approved the invasion of Iraq. 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. Sometimes you break stories, and networks ring you and say they want to interview you, and then they drop you because of the agenda. Im Amy Goodman. I ask her first if it is gratifying to finally have it out there? And they had already taken him down into the custody suite, which is, by the way, where I had been before. Sorry, no pun intended, Katharine. You didnt have that kind of support. Katharine Gun is the Most Important Whistleblower You've Never Heard of. KATHARINE GUN: My MP, yes, at the time. You're KATHARINE GUN: . I think of journalists as being bullet-proof in a way, she says, but obviously not., She and Bright have done several question and answer sessions in the US after the film has been screened at various festivals. 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.. White House Correspondents' Dinner: What's Happening & Who - Yahoo Gun had given a copy of the memo, with no supporting verification, to a friend of a friend who eventually brought it to the Observers investigative reporter Martin Bright. 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. Whistleblower Katharine Gun and journalist Martin Bright are interviewed for their new movie Official Secrets for the film's LFF screening. You authorized her prosecution. And the case was dropped. Anyway. You cannot talk to anyone about your intelligence work. The cop says, you know, Heres your ticket. Youre guilty of breaking the speed, but youre guilty of a crime. 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. delivered to your inbox every day! The love between Katharine and her husband, Yasar Gun, is undeniable, and the punishment they must to endure together is heart stopping. Why did you choose to do this film? Guns leak was perhaps the last example of whistleblowing that involved a red telephone box and a photocopier, rather than downloads. Keira Knightley as Katharine Gun in the film Official Secrets. It was in character, I think. Few are aware that her husband had also been thrown into troubled waters when Gun blew the lid off the alleged spy efforts in 2003. Theres no doubt. And then, on Tuesday, they called me in, and I went in. Did everything change? 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 . Gavin Hood, the director of Official Secrets, expressed scepticism about Macdonald's statement and called for the declassification of the official documents referred to by Macdonald. KATHARINE GUN: Devastation. Nobody knows if whistleblowing is nurture or nature. We were mostly in our mid-20s, so it was the usual stuff, who is going out with who. AMY GOODMAN: This is the NSA guy who wrote the memo. At the time, as I well remember, the paper was split in response to the talk of war. Following the dropping of the case, Liberty commented, "One wonders whether disclosure in this criminal trial might have been a little too embarrassing. And so, but theres another irony about the position of the attorney general, which is, the director of public prosecutions in Britain generally has real autonomy in deciding what cases to prosecute, except in cases of the Official Secrets Act, when he or she must get the authorization of the attorney general to prosecute. Its a paper that supported fascism between the wars, and sort of still does, in its way. But, yes, I did. MARTIN BRIGHT: Well, I mean, I think at that time, you knowwe knew, I suppose, by that point, that our paths were destined to cross. MARTIN BRIGHT: Not until around the time of the trial. I ended up, bizarrely, teaching a couple of my former colleagues at GCHQ. MARTIN BRIGHT: I have an abiding interest in the link between religion and conflict. Watching the film was like watching a case that was very similar to my own: Katharine Gun, photographed last month in Durham. " Gun tails off, as if embarrassed to make too grand a claim for herself. Guns words will, in the coming weeks finally receive the much wider audience they deserve. This was a huge story, crushed by a bigger story. AMY GOODMAN: And then what happened? Ralph Fiennes plays Ben Emmerson. Dont just swallow what politicians tell you. But a part of me thought: Damn we could have put the war on trial. 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. 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. . And through the lights, I couldnt quite see who the guy was. I call them the Usual Suspects., She thinks, given the current state of politics, that she might start to speak out more. Many wonder whether Guns young daughter has seen the film or been told of the importance of her mothers extraordinary actions. AMY GOODMAN: Now, he goes in for a regular check-in. AMY GOODMAN: Were you actually in the car with him, waiting for him to go in for his check-in? This U.K. Whistleblower Almost Stopped the Iraq Invasion of 2003 And I dont know how authentic it appeared to the person interviewing me, but I just felt terrible. 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. I watched you last night at one of the premieres of the film, a kind of secret showing of Official Secrets. 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. BBC NEWS | UK | Politics | Interview: Whistleblower Katharine Gun Protesters against the invasion of Iraq, February 2003. I mean, not the greatest decision of my life, I have to say. Her life story is depicted in the new film Official Secrets. In Part 2 of our discussion, we speak with Katharine Gun; the British journalists who reported on Guns revelations in The Observer newspaper, Martin Bright and Ed Vulliamy; and Gavin Hood, director of Official Secrets.. AMY GOODMAN: And so, you had to sell this. You know, youre the attorney general. Gun is a singular presence, and she answers with characteristic care, speaking slightly haltingly, weighing her words. And we can say that, you know, thatso, he comes back, under all this pressure. I think. Ralph Fiennes, fantastic, wonderful actor. The trials and tribulations of daringly telling the truth and facing its consequences must certainly not be a light burden to bear. Youre terrified. Katharine Gun outside the Old Bailey after charges had been dropped against her, 2004. I wish I could have written that scene. She is played, with steely English resolve, by Keira Knightley. I mean, the pack of cards has gone from Afghanistan to Iraq to Syria. Hes repackaged himself as sort of the European. AMY GOODMAN: And did they say they were going to charge you with the Official Secrets Act? She worked at the time at GCHQ, the British equivalent of the NSA." Does she tell her story when she meets new people? Gun is not active on social media and occasionally participates in small-scale conferences and discussions pertaining to politics. Strange Hollywood person. Also with us, the director of Official Secrets, Gavin Hood. Katharine Gun Official Secrets True Story Interview - Esquire The war did not end when George W. Bush said, Mission accomplished. It was only just beginning. [12] A government spokesman said that the decision to drop the case had been made before the defence's demands had been submitted. What I did is a very unusual thing to do, because the results are not generally good. But, you know, it. During the season 5 finale of American Idol, Katharine McPhee was named the runner-up against winner Taylor Hicks. And at some point, with great respect to Lord Goldsmith, he caves. And the memo was like this big red flag as soon as I saw it.. ED VULLIAMY: Yes. 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. I wonder what she made of the scattershot download methods of Edward Snowden and Julian Assange? But lets talk about that moment in the courthouse. KATHARINE GUN: No, she hasnt. 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. 'Official Secrets' Reveals How Little We Still Know About the Push for Copy may not be in its final form. Please do your part today. Attempts were made by the authorities to deport her husband, who grew disillusioned with Britain. Timpf, 32, and Friscia, 34, tied the knot . Shes just wearing her jeans and jumpers, you know, to work. When Brights story originally landed there were concentrated efforts to rubbish it in the gung-ho parts of the media. And I called Jed back, and I said, This is an amazing way into how we got into the Iraq War, thatwhy isnt it better known? And he saidI said, Could I come and meet Katharine? So, no, I mean, I didnt want to say I was guilty when I didnt feel guilty. In the very typical British manner, we just pretended we had never met, she recalled. Mary Katharine Ham - Smart Women Smart Money Magazine 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. 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 . AMY GOODMAN: So, before the time of the trial, Katharine, youthey have clamped down on you. The Tony Blair Conscience Fund or something? Following the incident, Gun struggled to find work that she loved, and her husband had grown disillusioned with Britain. And the other way is the good, old-fashioned self-defense. 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.