AMY GOODMAN: You succeeded in preventing his deportation. All rights reserved. AMY GOODMAN: So you just thought this was routine. Sometimes you break stories, and networks ring you and say they want to interview you, and then they drop you because of the agenda. Most people do. It was a very big audience, lovely, lovely theater. There is no single answer to that, she says, but Bright had the best stab at it: The only thing you can do is do your job right, and be a good citizen., In other words, she says, whatever your job is, do the things that you are supposed to do. So I saw people going in and coming out and going in and coming out. 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. I think I found like the missing piece. Anyway, thats why the scene. MARTIN BRIGHT: Yeah, who wrote the memo. I mean, I literallyI couldnt eat. Right? 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 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. 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. The cop says, you know, Heres your ticket. Youre guilty of breaking the speed, but youre guilty of a crime. I was teaching Mandarin in the local college in Cheltenham. And Mr. Ahmed is now the editorial director of the BBC, the revered BBC. Gun told Bright in 2013, "There seems to be this blas attitude - the spying goes on . The woman in her 20s attempted to stop the war and firmly stood to her truthful morals. The repercussions of a lot of what happened are still being felt today.. "We still do not know all that happened - what GCHQ did, and why things happened," he said. The official editorial line, led by the then editor Roger Alton (now an executive editor at the Daily Mail) and political editor Kamal Ahmed (now editorial director of BBC News) was in close support of the Blair governments position on the invasion. Official Secrets is based on the actions of Brit Katharine Gun, who revealed that America had been eavesdropping on diplomats from other countries. So I was in a dreadful state. He knows he cant save the child. Guns leak was perhaps the last example of whistleblowing that involved a red telephone box and a photocopier, rather than downloads. This is viewer supported news. 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.. But my closest friends stuck by me.. The first is a U.N. resolution for war. [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. But this is not the issue. 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. Guardian Australia acknowledges the traditional owners and custodians of Country throughout Australia and their connections to land, waters and community. AMY GOODMAN: And, Ed, you see whats going on in this country, in the United States, not to mention where youre from, in Britain. But I felt this information was explosive, it needed to get out. ED VULLIAMY: Yes. You're KATHARINE GUN: . Mary Katherine Higdon of Griffin, Georgia, was arrested for the murder of her live-in boyfriend, Steven Freeman. 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. Maybe there will be sympathy.. Do you think shed meet with me? Because I think we were both a little skeptical of each other. He left the Observer not long after the events it describes and now runs the Creative Society, a charity that helps widen access to jobs in the media and the arts to candidates with non-traditional backgrounds. It was very difficult initially. AMY GOODMAN: Well, explain that. AMY GOODMAN: But what caused you to say no? So, was that Frank Koza? And she hadnt said why she had resigned. Well, this article is all about the Katherine Johnson childhood, Katherine Johnson husband (s), Katherine Johnson family and Her career in NASA. AMY GOODMAN: How rarely a woman actress, an actor, gets to play, you know, the protagonist, the solid, strong hero, Gavin. I watched it in San Francisco, at the premiere, and my friend from childhood who lived there was with me. AMY GOODMAN: Martin, you went on to work with Tony Blair, didnt you? [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]. Copy may not be in its final form. I mean, this is difficult for me to say this, but, for those of your viewers who are interested in what happens in the mediaMartin and I, here we are, doing our bestthe two people involved, who are in the film, ED VULLIAMY: The top people are, respectively, managing editor of the Daily Mail, which is a sort of rather. GAVIN HOOD: Yes, strong women. Full Interview: Frank Mugisha on New Anti-, Former Guantnamo Prisoners Ask Biden to Let Them Keep Art They Made to Escape Inhumane Conditions, Part 1: In 2003, This U.K. Whistleblower Almost Stopped the Iraq Invasion. Katharine Teresa Gun (ne Harwood;[1] born 1974) is a British linguist who worked as a translator for the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). 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. "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. For the past nine years she has been living in Turkey with her Turkish husband and their 11-year-old daughter. And they say, Were not even going to vote on this resolution. And the next day, we invade. We sat in the bar of a city centre hotel, and talked about the ancient history of 2003. 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.. MARTIN BRIGHT: But once everyone did, there waswe knew that there was somethingthere was something going on. He gets more and more pressure from Blair. And they failed, in part, I believe, because Katharine Gun leaked that memo. Before I knew it, I had spent two hours researching Katharine. AMY GOODMAN: And what did you tell Katharine at that time? Ellsberg has called Katharine Guns action the most important and courageous leak I have ever seen. It was in a police cell that she uttered those two sentences that now seem to define the person she was and is. AMY GOODMAN: Now, he goes in for a regular check-in. I would love to know. 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. Martin Bright and Ben Emmerson stick by Kathrine the whole time . Don't let 'the intelligence and the facts be fixed around the policy' this time. MARTIN BRIGHT: You know, I mean, you dont want to get too conspiratorial about this. AMY GOODMAN: So, theyre processing him. KATHARINE GUN: Need I say more? Initially, Gun decided to teach Mandarin Chinese in Britain. And so, I immediately went home, and Iand at the time, actually, well, my dad was staying with me, because it was Chinese New Year, and he was back from Taiwan, and he was supporting me, so he was at home. KATHARINE GUN: Yeah, I was very excited to meet Keira in London before they started shooting. 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 was very concerned about joining any kind of organisation like Stop the War, and being used as a focal point or something. 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. And they attempt to deport your husband, who is a? I mean, obviously, at that point, then felt very sorry that someone had been arrested, but it was a huge relief at the time. 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. These were, as I said before, bitter times. Macdonald stated that Gun would not have received a fair trial without the disclosure of information that would have compromised national security. And the potential chink in the Official Secrets Act we had found, which could have become a defence for others, the defence of necessity [of speaking up to save imminent danger to life], it wasnt tested in court.. Gun was outraged after she learned - as part of her job with GCHQ - that the United States wanted . First day, what did you feel? I wish wed pushed it harder with the boss class within The Observer. You know, in the end, there was a feeling, I think, whatI know that Katharine and I have talked about this a lot. And all we were focused on was what might it felt like in this moment to have been Katharine. 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. The film, Official Secrets, comes out officially at the end of August. You want to know where he is?. 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. 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. She is played, with steely English resolve, by Keira Knightley. AMY GOODMAN: And then what happened? And I was tasked to set up a website to look into this. With me, it was this. When he didnt come out, I was panicking, you know, and I ran inside. No need to prove anything further. Yeah, so it was panic stations after that. Truth has a habit of finding a voice, however. I was the U.S. correspondent indeed, but very soon I was in Najaf, Nasiriyah, Fallujah, unembedded, watching this bloody carnage, thisthe implosion of this country. I thought you said youre sick. And I said, I need to talk to you. And so we went into a small room, and I just said, I did it. And then she put her arm around me and went, Oh, Katharine. And then I burst out crying. Given my experience I would want to hear what happened from the horses mouth, I think.. Its incredibly daunting, you know. KATHARINE GUN: Oh, no. 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 . [16], Her husband, Yaar Gn,[17][18] is a Turkish Kurd. You know, youre the attorney general. Gun had, of course, been forced to abandon her career in the civil service and finally, struggling for work, left Britain altogether. GAVIN HOOD: These are representatives at the U.N.. Watching the film was like watching a case that was very similar to my own: Katharine Gun, photographed last month in Durham. No need for weapons of mass destruction arguments. AMY GOODMAN: Shes then arrested. And you had a showing in San Francisco. I mean, I dont think we imagined that we would be still friends and still talking about it 14, 15 years later. Read More: Is Official Secrets a True Story? 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.. The simple fact is, she says: Truth always matters at the end of the day., Official Secrets is released on 18 October. You know, I mean, once itsif you plead guilty and you go away for three months, and its, you know, maybe not so bad as going away for two years, but still I would have had a record. Gun was charged for exposing around the time of Colin Powell's infamous testimony to the UN about Iraq's alleged WMDs a top-secret U.S. government memo showing it was mounting an . I hope, when shes ready for this story, she will. One foundered for lack of funds, another strayed further from the truth than she would have liked. AMY GOODMAN: Youre watching that on television. GAVIN HOOD: What she discovers saysis a request from the NSA to GCHQ to hack, bug the private communications and the office communications of U.N. Security Council members, in particular the nonpermanent members, the more junior members. But, you know, these things happen. We could haveyou know, you always have regrets, dont you? But, you know, it. AMY GOODMAN: the person in charge of news.
