Throughout her own court case, what only a few knew was that she was also fighting for And people do this in every country; they spy, they listen to what are the Chinese going to do when they get to this conference. And she said, Yep, I have no problem being asked to listen in, in instances where I might help prevent a terror attack. What this memo suggested was neither of those things it was a bridge too far for her. To separate fact from fiction, Newsweek spoke to the real Gun and Bright, as well as Official Secrets director Gavin Hood. However, her husband and the father of her daughters name is Yasar Gun. Katharine Gun, a British former government employee, faced two years imprisonment in England for the crime of telling the truth. And I thought: this is good. 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. WebHer husband, Yaar Gn, is a Turkish Kurd. The comments below have been moderated in advance. What do I do? And that was my way in. And I think thats why you get this very honest, pure, deeply felt performance. Maybe thats rewarding. Even though she didn't stop the war and some people are like what's the point if she didn't stop the warwell, the point is how do you sleep at night? WebKatharine Gun (ne Harwood), 47, is married to Yasar Gn, a Turkish Kurd, with whom she has a 13-year old daughter. Spoilers to follow as well. Director Gavin Hood Writers Sara Bernstein Gregory Bernstein Gavin Hood Stars Keira Knightley Matt Smith Matthew Goode Such a law is not compatible with openness, transparency, accountability and justice. 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, Don't mention the Iraq war, William Hague tells cabinet, Tenyears on, the case for invading Iraq is still valid, Occupying Iraq: a US army veteran's ambivalence, Howthe Bush administration sold the war and we bought it, the story the paper published 10 years ago this weekend, was arrested, lost her job and faced trial under the Official Secrets Act, collapsed after the prosecution withdrew its evidence. If it was, who cleared it to be passed to GCHQ? It left me in an impossible predicament. I don't think she thought they would deport her husband, I really don't think she thought that. WebYou 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. "And she then said: 'My way into this is what would I as the unadorned, no-makeup, no-fancy-edges Keira Knightley what would I feel like if this memo landed on my desk?'". Some of those same birds are still flapping wings in the skies above Washington. Theyre talking about diplomatic negotiations, and having all the cards on the table, but behind that what theyre doing is trying to bribe UN diplomatic members to vote for a war which has no legal justifications, Gun says. ", Keira Knightley and Katharine Gun at the London premiere of "Official Secrets. It was like a neon sign that was flashing at me, Gun says. Or at least, she could have been. It was the first time I had worked with characters who were still alive, and they very much wanted it to be accurate or they wouldn't sign over their life rights. Two hours later after this deep dive, I called Ged back and said, How come we dont know this story? I guess the answer to that is that her story was big news for the day, and then very quickly got crushed by a bigger story, which was the story of the invasion. My job had been to listen to Chinese communications, translate them from Mandarin to English and produce reports for different government departments. First, I contacted someone to this day Ive never named them who had the details of a journalist and anti-war activist. Which is to say that GCHQ was being asked to dig dirt on foreign officials so that they could be blackmailed, bribed or both in order to secure a UN resolution authorising an invasion. David Dayen: But he is not a headline journalist at a newspaper. And it's also true that we were then attacked by the Drudge Report for what would now be called 'fake news. Right now my priorities are to ensure I am there for my daughter.". "But that's partly my own fault because I haven't aggressively pursued a career. But that shouldn't be the philosophy pre-war when you're trying to decide whether to go to war. As I walked down the red carpet, I had never in my life experienced the flash of so many cameras. So thats how the scene happened, but she didnt know where he was for three days, he was at Harmonsworth, before she got him out. Exaggerating threats to provoke a war? By printing off the memo, putting it in her handbag and taking it home, she was already committing a serious breach of the Official Secrets Act. Its had far reaching and very negative impacts in all aspects of our institutions and our public life," Gun says. You can look up Nicole Mowbray, she wrote an article in The Guardian a couple weeks ago, about this worst day of her life. The case and the resulting anxiety never seemed far away. During the American-lead 2003 campaign for United Nations support for an invasion of Iraq, Gun, who's played in the film by Keira Knightley, was a 28 year-old Mandarin translator working for the UKs Government Communications Headquarters, the nations equivalent of the American NSA. This meant that a lot of the things that we see Gun go through in the film actually took far longer in real life. Despite the millions affected by the Iraq War, its now far removed from British and American news cycles, displaced from the headlines by todays political turmoil. Meanwhile, Kamal Ahmed, who is the guy at The Observer, is now the editorial director of the BBC. And he kept thinking, 'How am I going to portray this? Us, in any situation, wherever you work, I thought that's what this timeless about it. She said, I was naive. Seven times I've submitted articles to you with an alternate point of view, and seven times you've turned me down. David Dayen: The first thing I thought about when looking at this movie is that in most recent historical epics, the audience knows what's happening next. To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page. ", As for her own story, she recognises that 10 years on it scarcely registers with the public. He really wouldnt; that scene in the movie really happened. British Secret Service Officer Katharine, then a young bride, risked everything to leak details of the Bush-Blair plan to coerce (possibly blackmail) members of the UN Security Council in order to win their votes to legalize invading Iraq. The poor woman is based on a real person. But, did it change the way I approached it? Was the British government aware of it? For several years, just recalling the events would set my heart racing and my hands trembling. If if wasnt, what does that mean for the rule of law? The other was Coleen Rowley, former FBI special agent and counsel at the Minneapolis bureau, who blew the whistle on FBI and other shortcomings Only now, more than a decade and a half later, is this disturbing sequence of events once again receiving the attention it deserves thanks to Official Secrets, a brilliant new movie starring Keira and former Doctor Who, Matt Smith. It is written by Sara and Gregory Bernstein, a California-based husband-and-wife writing partnership who have worked with British director Jonathan Lynn. It almost started with, well, would I have the courage to do what she did in another setting maybe? So when I sent the script to Keira, and I was very hopeful that she would do it because she does a lot of period dramas, and you dont often see her in a modern drama and I thought shed be great. He runs a media charity. Did that change your approach to presenting the film knowing that this was actually going to be somewhat of a surprise to people? Ed, the real Ed, is absolutely delightful. It's tough, the laws here are even stricter than in the UK. David Dayen: As someone who works on a magazine, it's the ultimate copyediting failure. What happened to Gun afterwards forms the basis of the film Official Secrets, which opened in New York and Los Angeles earlier this month and goes into wider release today. With the operation blown, the chances of George W Bush and Tony Blair getting the consensus for a direct UN mandate for war were now near zero. Webdeport Guns husband, Yasar (Adam Bakri), a Muslim Kurdish Turk who was awaiting permanent leave to remain in the U.K. In leaking it to the Observer, she was also doing something unprecedented in the history of espionage. I am an American citizen; I have a strange accent but Ive been here 25 years; my kids were born here. Gun said that the UK government still had some explaining to do: "I thinkthere need to be more questions asked about whether they responded to that request, why they felt it was within their scope of work to respond to that sort of request, and what is the manner of the relationship between UK politics and US politics. Powerful Commons committee could look at case for banning stoves in towns and Love Island hit by hundreds of Ofcom complaints from furious viewers over 'toxic femininity' row and Movie As easy as buying a loaf of bread: Undercover footage reveals how laughing gas is being sold from local Could Northern Ireland become the UK's Silicon Valley? And Where Is Katharine Gun, JUST 36 HOURS TO GO IN OUR WINTER CAMPAIGN. Gavin Hood: I asked her the same questions, and on about my second day interviewing her, I said to her, because I wasnt sure if I should make the movie; I mean, I needed to know whose story I was telling and if she was batshit crazy. David Dayen: I want to go to the questions now. The truth was that in April of 2002, the two world leaders secretly had agreed on a plan to take out Saddam, all the while giving speeches insisting that the only motivation for even considering war was that horrific stockpile of deadly weapons. I even thought, naively, Id be able to keep my anonymity. The point of all of this is painfully obvious. Later, she gave the document to a friend, who passed it onto a contact in the anti-war movement, until it finally landed with journalists Martin Bright and Ed Vulliamy The Observer. Keira calmly said: Oh, that was probably me. I still blush to the tips of my toes when I think about it. Look at what happened to Reality Winner in this country. We have a blondish-looking Katharine. For the Observer too, it was a story full of risks. 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