Honesty Killed David Kelly
By Tam Dalyell
Globe and Mail/Canada
23 July, 2003
There are whistle blowers and then there are Whistle Blowers. Many who reveal secrets about government probably act out of self-interest and I am not concerned with such persons. The 24-karat gold Whistle Blower, however, is the man or woman who acts against his own self-interest, but in the best interests of his country.Such a man was Clive Ponting, the former adviser in the Ministry of Defense who was accused of breaching Britain's Official Secrets Act in 1985 when he passed to me information about the true circumstances surrounding the sinking of the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano during the 1982 Falklands War. The latest such man was scientist David Kelly, the government weapons inspector found dead with his wrist slit near his Oxfordshire home on Friday. The British Broadcasting Corp. has confirmed that Mr. Kelly was the principal source for its report that Prime Minister Tony Blair's office had exaggerated intelligence reports of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
The motive behind such acts of whistle-blowing is most often rage against politicians and government hierarchies that have failed to tell the public what they know to be unpalatable truths.
This was certainly the case with Clive Ponting, who acted out of professional conscience in coming forward to expose unethical government secrecy regarding the Falklands War. In the aftermath of that war, I, for one, had become concerned about the circumstances surrounding the Belgrano. A total of 368 lives were lost in the sinking of the cruiser in May, 1982. The Parliament, press, and people of Britain were led to believe that the Belgrano had been sailing into battle against the British fleet. I believed, however, that it had been sailing home to Argentina when it was attacked; in other words, sailing away from our fleet.
It was against this background that I received a postcard that could only have come from someone with inside knowledge. The source was eventually revealed to be Mr. Ponting, then an assistant secretary in the Ministry of Defense His message confirmed that then-prime minister Margaret Thatcher herself knew that the Belgrano was sailing towards Argentina and presented no threat to the British fleet.
It later became clear that the sinking of the Belgrano had been carried out because Mrs. Thatcher and ministers in her government wanted a military victory for domestic political reasons.
Mercifully, I had the sense to keep the postcard away from the press and sent it to the chair of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, Sir Anthony Kershaw, a former Conservative minister. Instead of being outraged, as I thought he would be, he forwarded the information to the Secretary of State for Defense Instead of an investigation into the government's deception, enormous pressure was applied throughout the ministry to determine the identity of the whistle blower.
Though Mr. Ponting first denied his involvement, he eventually owned up, on the understandable human grounds that he didn't want the blanket of suspicion to be thrown over his colleagues.
Mr. Ponting was charged with breach of our Official Secrets Act, a most serious offence.
At this point, no one except me outside the government knew the contents of Mr. Ponting's revelations. Soon after he was charged, however, the documents found their way into the press.
I spent 11 days at the Old Bailey, the central criminal court in London and saw the agony that this brave man went through. Despite the direction of the judge -- a person handpicked by the government, I believe -- the jury handed down a surprise verdict of not guilty. In a statement outside court, Mr. Ponting said, "I did what I thought was right in leaking the documents . . . a civil servant is not, in the final analysis, at the beck and call of ministers only. We also serve the wider national interest."
Mr. Ponting told me some months after the trial that one of the great difficulties he faced was deciding whether to reveal the whole truth.
Now, once again, a government has been accused of misleading Parliament and the public at a time of war. Once again, a brave soul stepped forward. In David Kelly's case, I believe that he genuinely was not sure as to whether he was the main whistle blower or whether others had also come forward with weapons information. The sheer honesty of the man had caused him to admit to his manager his role in revealing information to the BBC.
Whistle blowers must realize that their organizations will do little or nothing to protect them in times of adversity. It is a great tragedy that Mr. Kelly took the action he appears to have taken. As in the case of Clive Ponting, I believe he would have been protected by public opinion. The British people are day-by-day becoming more horrified at what is happening in Iraq.
Clive Ponting has moved on to another life as an academic and author on world history and green issues. His whistle-blowing days are far in his past -- though Mr. Kelly's case must revive memories of the costs of telling the truth.
Some reports here have indicated that Mr. Kelly may have been in despair over possible threats about whether he would get a pension after 40 years of service to the British state. We'll never know for sure why he took the fateful decision to go for that awful walk into the woods.
What we can be sure of is that this man died because of his honest belief in service to his country.
Tam Dalyell, Labour MP for Linlithgow since 1962, is the longest continuously serving member of the British House of Commons.
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