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WikiLeaks: exclusive book extract WikiLeaks: exclusive book extract
(7 months later)
Glimpsed in the Glimpsed in the half-light of a London evening, the figure might just have passed for female. She emerged cautiously from a doorway and folded herself into a battered red car. There were a few companions – among them a grim-visaged man with Nordic features and a couple of nerdy youngsters. One appeared to have given the old woman her coat. The car weaved through the light Paddington traffic, heading north in the direction of Cambridge. As they proceeded up the M11 motorway the occupants peered back. There was no obvious sign of pursuit. Nonetheless, they periodically pulled off the road into a lay-by and waited – lights killed – in the gloom. Apparently undetected, the group headed eastward along the slow A143 road. By 10pm they had reached the flatlands of East Anglia, a sepia landscape where the occasional disused sugar factory hulked out of the blackness.
half-light of a London evening, the figure might just have passed for female. Fifteen miles inland, at the unremarkable village of Ellingham, they finally turned left. The car skidded on a driveway, and drove past an ancient dovecote before stopping in front of a grand Georgian manor house. The woman stepped from the car. There was something odd about her. She had a kind of hump! If a CIA agent or some other observer were hidden in the woodland along with the pheasants, they could have been forgiven for a moment of puzzlement.
She emerged cautiously from a doorway and folded herself into a battered red Close up, however, it was obvious that this strange figure was Julian Assange, his platinum hair concealed by a wig. At more than 6ft tall, he was never going to be a very convincing female. “You can’t imagine how ridiculous it was,” WikiLeaks’ James Ball later said. “He’d stayed dressed up as an old woman for more than two hours.” Assange was swapping genders in a pantomime attempt to evade possible pursuers. With him were also his young aide, Sarah Harrison, and his deputy, the Icelandic journalist Kristinn Hrafnsson. On that evening, this small team was the nucleus of WikiLeaks, the whistleblower website Assange had launched four years earlier.
car. There were a few companions – among them a grim-visaged man with Nordic In a breathtakingly short time, WikiLeaks had soared out of its previous niche as an obscure radical website to become a widely known online news platform. Assange had published leaked footage showing airborne US helicopter pilots executing two Reuters employees in Baghdad, seemingly as if they were playing a video-game. He had followed up this coup with another, even bigger sensation: an unprecedented newspaper deal, brokered with the Guardian newspaper in London, to reveal hundreds of thousands of classified US military field reports from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, many of them damning.
features and a couple of nerdy youngsters. One appeared to have given the old Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, was a computer hacker of genius. He could be charming, capable of deadpan humour and wit. But he could also be waspish, flaring into anger and recrimination. Assange’s mercurial temperament spawned groupies and enemies, supporters and ill-wishers, sometimes even in the same person. Information messiah or cyber-terrorist? Freedom fighter or sociopath? Moral crusader or deluded narcissist? The debate over Assange would reverberate in the coming weeks in headlines the world over.
woman her coat. The car weaved through the light Paddington traffic, heading Assange and his team had fled here from the Frontline Club, a hang-out for foreign correspondents and other media types in west London. Since July and the launch of the Afghan war logs, Assange had slept, on and off, in the club’s accommodation at Southwick Mews. The club’s founder, Vaughan Smith, had become a sympathiser and ally, and invited Assange and his coterie to his ancestral home, Ellingham Hall, tucked away in a remote corner of East Anglia. And here these unlikely refugees had now arrived.
north in the direction of Cambridge. As they proceeded up the M11 motorway the Smith was a former captain of the Grenadier Guards, an elite regiment of the British army, who went on to become a freelance video journalist with Frontline TV. His adventures in war zones – Iraq during the first Gulf war, where he bluffed his way in disguised as a British army officer; Bosnia, with its massacres and horrors; Afghanistan; and Iraq again – had demonstrated a spirit of maverick independence. Smith was no anarchist. His family had served in the British army for generations. His paper of choice was Britain’s conservative, crusty Daily Telegraph. Smith was also brave. In Kosovo, his life was saved when a deadly bullet lodged in his mobile telephone.
occupants peered back. There was no obvious sign of pursuit. Nonetheless, they But in common with other right-wing libertarians, he had a stubborn sense of fair play and believed in sticking up for the underdog. In this instance that meant Assange, who had become a hate figure for the bellicose US right. They wanted him arrested. Some were even calling for his assassination. Smith broadly supported Assange’s crusade for transparency at a time when – as Smith saw it – journalism itself had moved uncomfortably close to government, and was in danger of becoming mere PR fluff.
periodically pulled off the road into a lay-by and waited – lights killed – in When Assange settled in to work at Ellingham Hall, already living in the manor house were Pranvera Shema, Smith’s Kosovo-born wife, and their two small children. Aged five and two, their bikes stood outside the hall’s imposing porte-cochère entrance. Also in residence on the estate were Vaughan’s upper-class parents. Vaughan’s father, too, had served in the Guards; a portrait of him as a young officer in a scarlet tunic hung in the dining room. Smith Sr could be seen holding a white pouch: a discreet reference to his career as a Queen’s Messenger. The role involved travelling around the world on Her Majesty’s business, hand-carrying diplomatic secrets. It was clear that Smith Sr took a dim view of Assange, who was believed to be in possession of an astonishingly large number of secret diplomatic dispatches.
the gloom. Apparently undetected, the group headed eastward along the slow A143 Smith Sr would take to patrolling the estate – with its twin lakes and cedar trees – armed with a rifle. The rifle was fitted with a sniper-sight. The sniper-sight was camouflaged. Normally he fired at partridge and grouse. The temptation, however, to take a shot at the paparazzi that would soon encamp themselves outside the manor – or indeed at the unwashed radicals inside it – must have been considerable. Asked two days before Christmas whether he was enjoying playing host to the group of international leakers who were here, he answered through gritted teeth. “I wish they weren’t.” It was one of many ironies that would pepper the tension-filled weeks.
road. By 10pm they had reached the flatlands of East Anglia, a sepia landscape
where the occasional disused sugar factory hulked out of the blackness.
Fifteen miles
inland, at the unremarkable village of Ellingham, they finally turned left. The
car skidded on a driveway, and drove past an ancient dovecote before stopping
in front of a grand Georgian manor house. The woman stepped from the car. There
was something odd about her. She had a kind of hump! If a CIA agent or some
other observer were hidden in the woodland along with the pheasants, they could
have been forgiven for a moment of puzzlement.
Close up, however,
it was obvious that this strange figure was Julian Assange, his platinum hair
concealed by a wig. At more than 6ft tall, he was never going to be a very
convincing female. “You can’t imagine how ridiculous it was,” WikiLeaks’ James
Ball later said. “He’d stayed dressed up as an old woman for more than two
hours.” Assange was swapping genders in a pantomime attempt to evade possible
pursuers. With him were also his young aide, Sarah Harrison, and his deputy,
the Icelandic journalist Kristinn Hrafnsson. On that evening, this small team
was the nucleus of WikiLeaks, the whistleblower website Assange had launched
four years earlier.
In a
breathtakingly short time, WikiLeaks had soared out of its previous niche as an
obscure radical website to become a widely known online news platform. Assange
had published leaked footage showing airborne US helicopter pilots executing
two Reuters employees in Baghdad, seemingly as if they were playing a video-game.
He had followed up this coup with another, even bigger sensation: an
unprecedented newspaper deal, brokered with the Guardian newspaper in
London, to reveal hundreds of thousands of classified US military field reports
from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, many of them damning.
Assange, a
39-year-old Australian, was a computer hacker of genius. He could be charming,
capable of deadpan humour and wit. But he could also be waspish, flaring into
anger and recrimination. Assange’s mercurial temperament spawned groupies and
enemies, supporters and ill-wishers, sometimes even in the same person.
Information messiah or cyber-terrorist? Freedom fighter or sociopath? Moral
crusader or deluded narcissist? The debate over Assange would reverberate in
the coming weeks in headlines the world over.
Assange and his
team had fled here from the Frontline Club, a hang-out for foreign
correspondents and other media types in west London. Since July and the launch
of the Afghan war logs, Assange had slept, on and off, in the club’s
accommodation at Southwick Mews. The club’s founder, Vaughan Smith, had become
a sympathiser and ally, and invited Assange and his coterie to his ancestral
home, Ellingham Hall, tucked away in a remote corner of East Anglia. And here
these unlikely refugees had now arrived.
Smith was a former
captain of the Grenadier Guards, an elite regiment of the British army, who
went on to become a freelance video journalist with Frontline TV. His
adventures in war zones – Iraq during the first Gulf war, where he bluffed his
way in disguised as a British army officer; Bosnia, with its massacres and
horrors; Afghanistan; and Iraq again – had demonstrated a spirit of maverick
independence. Smith was no anarchist. His family had served in the British army
for generations. His paper of choice was Britain’s conservative, crusty Daily
Telegraph. Smith was also brave. In Kosovo, his life was saved when a
deadly bullet lodged in his mobile telephone.
But in common with
other right-wing libertarians, he had a stubborn sense of fair play and
believed in sticking up for the underdog. In this instance that meant Assange,
who had become a hate figure for the bellicose US right. They wanted him
arrested. Some were even calling for his assassination. Smith broadly supported
Assange’s crusade for transparency at a time when – as Smith saw it –
journalism itself had moved uncomfortably close to government, and was in
danger of becoming mere PR fluff.
When Assange
settled in to work at Ellingham Hall, already living in the manor house were
Pranvera Shema, Smith’s Kosovo-born wife, and their two small children. Aged
five and two, their bikes stood outside the hall’s imposing porte-cochère
entrance. Also in residence on the estate were Vaughan’s upper-class parents.
Vaughan’s father, too, had served in the Guards; a portrait of him as a young
officer in a scarlet tunic hung in the dining room. Smith Sr could be seen
holding a white pouch: a discreet reference to his career as a Queen’s
Messenger. The role involved travelling around the world on Her Majesty’s
business, hand-carrying diplomatic secrets. It was clear that Smith Sr took a
dim view of Assange, who was believed to be in possession of an astonishingly
large number of secret diplomatic dispatches.
Smith Sr would take to patrolling the estate – with its twin lakes
and cedar trees – armed with a rifle. The rifle was fitted with a sniper-sight.
The sniper-sight was camouflaged. Normally he fired at partridge and grouse.
The temptation, however, to take a shot at the paparazzi that would soon encamp
themselves outside the manor – or indeed at the unwashed radicals inside it –
must have been considerable. Asked two days before Christmas whether he was
enjoying playing host to the group of international leakers who were here, he
answered through gritted teeth. “I wish they weren’t.” It was one of many
ironies that would pepper the tension-filled weeks.
This is an edited extract from WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy by David Leigh and Luke Harding (Guardian Faber, £7.99)This is an edited extract from WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy by David Leigh and Luke Harding (Guardian Faber, £7.99)
Get it from Amazon Kindle or directly from the Guardian Bookshop.Get it from Amazon Kindle or directly from the Guardian Bookshop.