But yeah, I mean, I was hugely impressed. And they failed, in part, I believe, because Katharine Gun leaked that memo. I was teaching Mandarin in the local college in Cheltenham. KATHARINE GUN: No, she hasnt. Theyre watching, you know, video games and bombs landing on Baghdadshock and awe. I mean, the pack of cards has gone from Afghanistan to Iraq to Syria. Ten years ago, a young Mandarin specialist at GCHQ, the government's surveillance centre in Cheltenham, did something extraordinary. The diplomats were due to vote on a second United Nations resolution on the prospective 2003 invasion of Iraq. They may have chosen to push those boundaries, but they did know the difference, and they knew that it mattered if they were caught. You didnt have that kind of support. The Observers front page story on 2 March 2003. Gun discusses her attempt to stop the Iraq War, which is the subject of the new movie Official Secrets. A film, Official Secrets, has been made of her story. 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. There is a sense of, Did it really happen? Is that really me?. Who is her husband? You know, we had it in October 2002. Sometimes you break stories, and networks ring you and say they want to interview you, and then they drop you because of the agenda. AMY GOODMAN: And, Katharine, describe that moment, when you come into court in this very dramatic waybut this is not just a feature film; this is your lifeand youre facing years in prison, your husband not there because youre concerned he will become the story as a refugee in Britain. 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. Thats our job. My GCHQ career obviously came to an end. I am currently reading a book about how to blow the whistle. Iraq war whistleblower Katharine Gun: Truth always matters. AMY GOODMAN: You mean period dramas of strong women have to be a hundred years ago. And she hadnt said why she had resigned. But as it happened, I wasnt called up on Monday. And Jed called me up and said, Have you heard of Katharine Gun? And you get this moment where you feel like you should have, because of the way hes saying it. 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 acclaimed Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg. Soon after, they moved to Turkey in 2011, and for the most part, the family has stayed away from the public eye. In 2003, she leaked top-secret information to The Observer, concerning a request by the United States for compromising intelligence on diplomats from member states of the 2003 Security Council.The diplomats were due to vote on a second United . Gun has spoken at the 51Fest and conferences arranged by organizations such as the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). . These were the six "swing nations" on the UN Security Council that could determine whether the UN approved the invasion of Iraq. Following the incident, Gun struggled to find work that she loved, and her husband had grown disillusioned with Britain. Before I knew it, I had spent two hours researching Katharine. As soon as I opened the door and he saw me coming in, and he could see something was wrong, and thenand I said, Theyve taken him. And he went, The bastards! So, anyway, I was on the phone. Soon after, they moved to Turkey in 2011, and for the most part, the family has stayed away from the public . We met in London. 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. So I was bailed until November, when they charged me. [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]. ED VULLIAMY: Yes. 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. 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. My marriage to my husband was very new at that juncture, and he had a very unstable status in the UK. 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? MARTIN BRIGHT: I have an abiding interest in the link between religion and conflict. According to evidence, he woke up during the attack but could not fight her off. as Katharine knows, it can be tougher to be right than to be wrong sometimes, if on those lucky occasions that one is right. [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. But this is not the issue. AMY GOODMAN: the person in charge of news. [9] Gun spent a night in police custody, and eight months later was charged with breaking the Official Secrets Act. Woman who tried to stop a war. In Official Secrets, Gun is played by Keira Knightley while Matt Smith takes on the role of Martin Bright. Truth has a habit of . ED VULLIAMY: Its a story of endeavor, to no avail. Well, this article is all about the Katherine Johnson childhood, Katherine Johnson husband (s), Katherine Johnson family and Her career in NASA. We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work. GAVIN HOOD: Thats exactly right. I mean, MI6 couldnt do that. 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. You get pulled over. A translator for UK intelligence agency GCHQ, Gun read a brief from the US National Security Agency urging its British sister organisation to spy on members of the UN Security Council, to gain influence i n a vote on whether to sanction an invasion of Iraq. One foundered for lack of funds, another strayed further from the truth than she would have liked. Megan (Knightley) is having a quarter-life crisis after her boyfriend proposes, so she escapes for a week to her new friend, a 16-year-old named Annika's ( Chlo Grace Moretz) house . Official Secrets, directed by Gavin Hood, is the third in a loose trilogy of political . [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. As of 2019[update] she has lived in Turkey with her husband and daughter for several years. The people who went in and smashed it up in 2003, do they watch the news? It was like watching a case that was very similar to my own. We could haveyou know, you always have regrets, dont you? Now, what we were doing when we were breaking this story was we were attempting to show that our governments had lied to us. Its all so resonant. 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. I had, you know, encounters with Blair. KATHARINE GUN: Well, yeah, yeah. A full trial might have exposed any such documents to public scrutiny, as the defence was expected to argue that trying to stop an unlawful war of aggression outweighed Gun's obligations under the Official Secrets Act. My childhood friend, for example, I remember hearing her father was on a blacklist because he had been agitating for the opposition. And they had already taken him down into the custody suite, which is, by the way, where I had been before. And its sothe nonpermanent members, who realized they were being hacked and their personal things were beingin order to try and blackmail them into a vote. I mean, thats why MartinI remember Martin and Ed. 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 mean, I literallyI couldnt eat. But I felt this information was explosive, it needed to get out. But, you know, these things happen. AMY GOODMAN: And then what happened? The repercussions of a lot of what happened are still being felt today.. In 2003, Gun was working as a translator of Mandarin at the government intelligence agency, GCHQ, in Cheltenham. The simple fact is, she says: Truth always matters at the end of the day., Official Secrets is released on 18 October. MARTIN BRIGHT: Yeah, I mean, the story doesnt end. Counted amongst the likes of Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and John Kiriakou is Katharine Gun, a whistleblower whose actions revealed the shocking underbelly of international politics and also inspired a big-budget movie that introduced many to the issue. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. It was in character, I think. Therefore, it is not surprising that Gun chose to move away from the center point of all the chaos once it died down. " Gun tails off, as if embarrassed to make too grand a claim for herself. AMY GOODMAN: And this is a critical moment, when you say October, because thats when the U.S. Senate voted to authorize war. And at some point, with great respect to Lord Goldsmith, he caves. Katharine Teresa Gun (ne Harwood; born 1974) is a British linguist who worked as a translator for the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). Official Secrets is based on the actions of Brit Katharine Gun, who revealed that America had been eavesdropping on diplomats from other countries. This is her story. Katharine Gun - who's played by Keira Knightley in a forthcoming film - blew the whistle on a dodgy scheme by the American government. You know, lets say Iyoure a bit of a gambler, arent you? And he didnt come back out again. Her upbringing later led her to describe herself as a "third culture kid". So, lots of leads there. 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 we still dont know why the British government dropped the case. This was a huge story, crushed by a bigger story. Look at those bombs falling on Baghdad. 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. AMY GOODMAN: So, theyre processing him. AMY GOODMAN: What did you think about your own prime minister? GAVIN HOOD: Chile, Bulgaria, Angola, Cameroon, Pakistan, Mexico. And the case was dropped. Anyway. The film, Official Secrets, comes out officially at the end of August. In the very typical British manner, we just pretended we had never met, she recalled. The little-told story of British intelligence whistleblower Katharine Gun leaves a trail of unanswered questions worth probing, even 16 years later, . And that was it. And Mr.. Which agency was it? You work for the British government, her interrogator said, with a sneer. With me, it was this. But lets talk about that moment in the courthouse. I was called up on Tuesday. KATHARINE GUN: It was GCHQ internal security, yeah. Somebody says, Lord Goldsmith, the defense to your charge against Katharine Gun is they want your documents. Case dropped. I wish I could have written that scene. I think youll find hes hiding in plain sight. And there was a dramatic hush in the audience. You dont do you? I'm Amy Goodman. The original content of this program is licensed under a. I was calling Nigel Jones, my MP. She continues to reside in Turkey and occasionally visits Britain. You're KATHARINE GUN: . Don't let 'the intelligence and the facts be fixed around the policy' this time. Nobody knows if whistleblowing is nurture or nature. The biggest story was: Who cares why were in the war? [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. 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. In the movie, her husband (Adam Bakri) is initially portrayed as a civilian, perceiving her job to be mundane. 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. But jokes aside, the reason she said to methe reason I constantly find myself going. MARTIN BRIGHT: We didI tell you what, though, we did feel that we had failed. Within half an hour, the case was dropped because the prosecution declined to offer evidence. Be consistent. At the time, as I well remember, the paper was split in response to the talk of war. I dont have to be in makeup or wardrobe for hours. And she just said what she loved about Katharine isand I hope this isnt said the wrong way, and I keep saying itshes one of us. The first is a U.N. resolution for war. You dont know who the GCHQ person is. GAVIN HOOD: Ben Emmerson. We thought maybe it would be some crusty old senior guy from a rival agency. 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. KATHARINE GUN: I dont know. How did she go about rebuilding her life? 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 at Bow Street magistrates court in 2003 after being charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act. AMY GOODMAN: But once everyone did, you knew. Copy may not be in its final form. Macdonald stated that Gun would not have received a fair trial without the disclosure of information that would have compromised national security. She is also well known as a GCHQ spy. Katharine Gun was a young specialist working for Britains Government Communications Headquarters when she exposed a highly confidential memo that revealed the United States was working with the United Kingdom to collect sensitive information on United Nations Security Council members in order to pressure them into supporting the Iraq invasion. AMY GOODMAN: Martin, you went on to work with Tony Blair, didnt you? And they had already taken him down into the custody suite, which is, by the way, where I had been before, Gun revealed. He says, Wait a minute. What does she hope people will take from the film? So, was that Frank Koza? 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 . He would have had to have the authority of Lord Goldsmith to prosecute. About five months or something? And, of course, I was sitting in the restaurant waiting for her to come in, and I had no idea what to expect. I think I found like the missing piece. Anyway, thats why the scene. 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. At first they dont name you, but then they do. And I can remember sitting back and thinking, This guy is not all there. And really, you know, she had so many questions for me, and she really genuinely wanted to know about the whole situation. And they say, Were not even going to vote on this resolution. And the next day, we invade. As of 2020[update] Gun lives in Turkey and Britain. AMY GOODMAN: And so, you decide to go back and revealwho was it that was questioning you? And you had a showing in San Francisco. 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. Do you think shed meet with me? Because I think we were both a little skeptical of each other. 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 . Details at membership.theguardian.com. I ended up, bizarrely, teaching a couple of my former colleagues at GCHQ. 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. The argument was then subsumed by 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. And so he went to Elizabeth and had a cup of tea, as you do in England. Mary Katherine Higdon of Griffin, Georgia, was arrested for the murder of her live-in boyfriend, Steven Freeman. 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?. She grew up in Taiwan, where her father had gone to teach, and her accent is hard to place. Is that when you both met? No need for weapons of mass destruction arguments. And I went back, and I felt worse that day at home. GAVIN HOOD: These are representatives at the U.N.. AMY GOODMAN: And what did you tell Katharine at that time? And, you know, he had nothing on him. The Case Against Mary Katherine Higdon 43:11. 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. Interview: Whistleblower Katharine Gun. 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. KATHARINE GUN: Devastation. Guns words will, in the coming weeks finally receive the much wider audience they deserve. In this episode of Schenck Talks Bonhoeffer, TDBI Founder and President, Rev. Just occasionally Gun is invited to speak at conferences organised by the likes of accuracy.org or VIPS (the Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity). 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. Keira Knightley as Katharine Gun in the film Official Secrets. AMY GOODMAN: And did they say they were going to charge you with the Official Secrets Act? 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. Shes just wearing her jeans and jumpers, you know, to work. 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.
