[Music]
Okay, take it. I need
Welcome to the very first edition of
Sputnik, orbiting the world with me,
George Galloway, and me, Gayatri,
otherwise known as Mrs.
Galloway. Every week through the lens of
London, we'll be covering the stories
that made it into the news and those
that didn't, but should have. It'll be
news from elsewhere and from a different
point of view, ours, but yours, too.
Through our social media portal, you can
supply us with your views on Twitter at
RT_Sputnik or from the streets of
London, where we are out and about every
week to listen to your voice. His name
was Bond, James Bond. Licensed to kill,
regularly shaken, but never stirred. He
was on her majesty's secret service. but
is a service that's secret no more. His
commander, whose very existence it was
an offense to divulge, used to sign
himself, see, and if I had told you his
real name, I would have had to kill you.
Though the service was often more Austin
Powers than James Bond, its very shroud
of mystery lent it an aura of glamour.
Now well and truly lost after a parade
of cockups, conspiracies, and farce.
Last week, the shroud was fully removed
for the first time when the heads of
Britain's domestic and foreign secret
intelligence services were forced to
appear in public before the cameras in
front of a parade of British MPs. And
look at those faces. Austin Powers
indeed at MI5. At GCHQ, we had Seran
Lobam. All hay, no needle. And over at
MI6, Sir John Sawyers is nothing much to
see. Well, that's really unprecedented.
From the shadow to the spotlight, what
led to that? Well, the the approximate
cause is Edward Snowden safely ensconced
in Russia and having spilled the beans
which are now spilling all over the
place. They're causing a crisis between
allies, the United States and Britain,
with France and Germany. And uh
Snowden's revelations, of which there
are more to come, have cast this
spotlight, on the whole spying game, and
the public and certainly the parliament
feels utterly betrayed and bypassed and
powerless to some extent to do anything
about it. So in the good old British
way, a parade of flunkies from the
intelligence services has appeared
before a parade of parliamentary
flunkies. Every one of those people on
the committee are themselves handpicked,
security cleared to even be on that
committee. So there was no chance they
were going to ask them any difficult
questions. But the very act of being
dragged blinking into the light will
have been very humiliating for the
formerly secret heads of the British
secret services. Well, so unimpressive
were the three spies that Scad Atkins
tweeted, "These three spy bosses look
like they work for Centria." To which
Mega Cries responds, "Are they just
psies? Not the real spy bosses. They're
really secret." Well, maybe not psies.
Definitely pasties. Now, later, we'll be
talking to legendary British spy writer
Philip Knightly, formerly a Britain
Sunday Times, a best-selling author, and
the man who secured the interview with
the equally legendary Kim Philby, who
while serving at the top of British
Secret Services, was also a colonel in
the KGB. But first, we sent our own
sleuth out and about to talk to the
public about the spying game.
[Music]
As you know, it's been revealed that the
state is spying on its civilians by
keeping all your searches, all your
emails, everything the state has all.
How do you feel about that?
Um, I guess one shouldn't be surprised
because you hear it in you see it in
sci-fi um movies and novels and they
usually are true. I didn't know they did
keep a record of absolutely everything.
It's all in GCHQ now. All my texts, all
my emails, all your email searches, all
your email and your internet search. I
don't feel very good about that. No, I
feel like my privacy is being invaded. I
feel violated, but it's something that
I'm sort of used to. Um because I'm
Egyptian and we've been used to we've
we've had a lot of problems with the US
regarding that matter. It's not there's
nothing you can do. They'll they'll get
the information one way. It's how they
use it. It's the worst thing. Are you
angry about it?
Um not really angry. Just just
I'm not angry that they do it. I'm angry
in the in the way that they might use it
because but you can't be a member of
society these days and and and not get
away with that. Otherwise, you you
wouldn't you wouldn't live anywhere. You
wouldn't have any credit cards. You
wouldn't be able to interact in any
way. Now, as I said, my first guest
today knows all there is to know about
the spying game. He's Philip Nightly.
Philip, thanks very much for joining us
on the first edition of Sputnik. You've
seen the parade of the heads of the
security services in front of a parade
of tame MPs. I must say things ain't
what they used to be. How h how much
have they changed? Well, they've changed
radically. You can't move anywhere these
days without being
bugged. Uh everything is they they sweep
the entire electromagnetic spectrum.
That's their own phrase. And nothing can
escape it. And it's very dispiriting
that people accept it so readily.
Indeed. Now you of course as I said
earlier wrote Philby the master spy and
the second oldest profession. You looked
at spying in the 20th century. What are
the biggest changes between spying in
the 20th century and spying in the 21st?
The use of computers.
uh the National Security Agency in the
United States measures its computers in
acres rather than number of
machines and they sweep the entire
electromagnetic spectrum. They there's
nothing can escape them. But is it any
more effective? I mean in the days you
were writing about spies left messages
on paper in dead letter drops and uh
shadowed each other, followed them
around. Were they more effective now or
less effective? less effective because
the people would not accept back in the
the good old days of spying that anybody
could be so interested in their private
affairs they would bug them or to
examine them and what they were doing or
and bugging the entire electromagnetic
spectrum has reached a stage now where a
spy is not only content with sweeping
the ether for all the stuff that's there
but is doing it on a professional basis.
Nobody there are no isms anymore. Uh, a
real spy these days is a young man who
is interested only in putting together a
professional, professionally run uh, spy
organization uh, and selling it to the
the material he's got to the highest
bidder. The people that you were writing
about came from a certain class in
British society and they were very few
in number. The security services were
numbered probably in their hundreds uh
at the beginning, maybe scores at the
very beginning, but now of course these
intelligence services have ballooned out
of all proportion, out of all
recognition. Yes, they're the greatest
20th century great growth industry. I
mean, you're on record as saying that
the whole thing is a a contract
basically. Yes. because governments
found long while ago that it was much
easier to control a population if that
population was imbued with a little bit
of fear. Uh and once they realize
that every everything that they they've
aimed at since has been to enhance that
fear and make it more difficult for an
ordinary citizen to keep any secrets at
all. These chaps now at the head,
they're not exactly James Bonds, are
they? I mean, some one of our Twitter uh
feeds uh said that they look more like
the men who run Centrica or British Gas.
Uh were they legendary figures before?
Were they men of militarybearing, more
impressive perhaps than they look today?
I think so in some ways. I mean, I
admire Philby, for example, because he
was a man who made a commitment to what
he believed to be an important political
cause when he was quite young at
Cambridge and kept that commitment come
what
may. Today's spy is has not got the same
commitment. Uh he'll sell the material
that he gathers to any
buyer and he's not interested in isms,
communism, capitalism, anything like
that. He's just interested in the
material that he can gather and sell.
One of the things that stuck out for me
in those vox pops was how fatalistically
people seem to have accepted all of
this. Well, not really fatalistic. It's
just that um they feel powerless. Yeah.
Under the with the state spying on them.
It's different from corporate companies
spying on them. That's what the
Washington Post revealed in from their
research. Uh you can you can get away
from companies spying on you. You can
boycott companies. Uh you can uh not uh
go to those companies. But where where
can you go away from from the state? Are
we done for Phillip? I mean is 1984
arrived big time and big brothers with
us and we can't get rid of him. Yes, we
can't get rid of him. Uh I know that's a
terribly pessimistic attitude to take
but computers are so
allreaching being operated by people who
are so ammoral that we can't get away
from them. It's here to stay. Uh and I'm
very pessimistic about the future of try
anybody trying to keep a secret about
anything. They're not they're not likely
to have been terrified by the
parliamentary committee. They're not
likely to have gone away with their
knees knocking together, quailing before
the ferocious uh interrogation. Did they
have more respect for parliament before?
Were they more afraid of Parliament
before? Or have they always been
essentially out of control? Well, I I
would say the latter. They've always
been essentially out of control because
it's see been easier for them to twist
parliament around their little finger.
They have no respect for parliament.
They only have respect for what they
call the
realm. Uh it's something that's the deep
state. Yes, the deep state. It's is
undefinable and they refuse to define
it. So we're not going to tell you what
we consider the state to be the realm of
the state. Uh but our loyalty is to the
realm and not the government of the day.
Fascinating. Philip Nightly, author of
Philby, KGB, Master Spy and the second
oldest profession. Thanks very much for
joining us here on Sputnik. Now after
the break, I'll be talking to another
legendary British newsman, Robert Fox,
defense correspondent with London's
Evening Standard on the eve of the
centinery of the First World War. We'll
be right back. Welcome back to Sputnik.
Now, every year in Britain in November,
there is a wave of solemn commemoration
of the end of the First World War.
There's a minute silence throughout the
land. People wear poppies and
increasingly there's a great deal of
pressure to wear them if you're anybody
at all in public life. And everyone
solemnly remembers the death of millions
of people in what they call the Great
War 1914 to 18. However, this year it
will have special importance because on
January 1 next year, the British
government has allocated 300 million
pounds for commemorative events of the
centinery of World War I. They clearly
intend to locate that war in a spectrum
of honorable British military
engagements. Indeed, they will call it a
victory. It's my point of view that the
First World War was perhaps the greatest
crime ever committed by Britain's ruling
elite on its own people. Lions were sent
to their death in their hundreds of
thousands, sometimes scores of thousands
in a single day. Lions led by donkeys.
So, we sent Gatri out onto the streets
of London again. Gatri. Yes, indeed. And
of course, I saw a lot of people wearing
their puppies. Uh, and so I gathered
their opinions. Let's have a look. Next
year is going to be the centinery of the
First World War. So, there's going to be
a lot of celebration about that. How do
you feel about that? Uh, I don't think
it's something that should be
celebrated. Um, I think it's tragic war
completely. I just feel sorry for all
the soldiers to be honest with you. I
don't think it's anything to celebrate.
Just a waste of millions of lives. Yeah,
absolutely. Yeah. I think better to
celebrate the end of it rather than the
beginning. Yeah, I think you I think in
a way you have got to celebrate because
it shows that you have got to have a
certain amount of respect for it and I
think celebrating it shows that we have
respect for it. Well, I mean not the
celebration I would say. I mean it's
more just to commemorate probably a
commemoration to uh say sorry for the
people who lost their lives over there.
I think it's uh distasteful. Um, I think
it should be more in line with like
Remembrance Sunday, uh, where it's a
little bit more individual rather than a
national celebration type
thing. Now, my next guest knows all
there is to know about the arts of war
and indeed the history of it. He's the
legendary British newsman, the Evening
Standards war correspondent, Robert Fox.
Robert, thanks for joining me on
Sputnik. You heard uh mixed views from
the public there. Uh my thesis, I'll be
candid, is that the first world war
represented a kind of crime, a giant war
crime against the people of this country
and other countries. A quarrel between
cousins that could have been resolved
around the breakfast table at Bal Moral.
That's very interesting thesis and I
think it counts for about 0 0.1% of the
whole argument. Uh, as you say, it was a
massive gamecher. I would agree with
you. It was an absolutely unnecessary
war. More than a crime, it's worse. It
was a folly. It was a terrible, terrible
folly that how they pushed into this.
People talked about the coming great
war. People talked about the need to
construct a coming great peace. But
there's uh another side to it, George,
which I'm surprised that you didn't
raise, but which we will do is uh if you
if if you look at particularly somebody
like uh the chancellor Angela Merkel,
Angela Merkel barely wants even to
mention the great war and I do
understand why she's using she thinks
and it's a very good argument that the
follyies and madness of the great war
and the sense of unfair defeat in
Germany and not exclusively like that
led to an even greater war in terms of
numerical humanity destroyed in the
second world war in other words led to
the rise of fascism and what I think
came out from your vox pop which is
related to that which is so interesting
is that only but one said let's
commemorate this for goodness sake let's
not celebrate
this but people before the great war
were celebrating war famously the
futurists
famously the poet Gabriela Danunio in
Italy and would you believe it in the
non big non-fiction prize in the UK this
very week what has won the prize a book
about Danunio which I'm absolutely
horrified by uh by by the way and there
was this militancy in the German
military machine the you know there was
the plan deset there was the Schlieffen
plan there was the plan that said
by surgical use they would say to use an
anacronism of mechanized war we can
capture Paris it'll all be over and then
it's Deutseland Uberales and then we can
set the new industrial system it was
letting loose this new mechanized group
of horsemen of the apocalypse of
mechanized industrial war because as
Eric Hobsborn the the noted and terrific
Marxist historian said this was the
beginning of the long war this was a war
that didn't really finish until the
1990s and that is why it is so terrible.
It has to be looked at but you can't
ignore it and you can't belittle it. It
is part of our collective memory. I'm as
passionate as you are about it but it's
very important to look this beast in the
eye and look at it for what it is. The
reason we use the word celebrate is
there will be a definite attempt to uh
link it to World War II. A truly great
war, but one which had to be fought and
in which we were on the right side and
stood for a period alone. Truly our
finest hour. But the first world war
wasn't like that. Isn't it the case the
Second World War was the good war and
the first world war the bad war?
Oversimplistic, George. I'm sorry.
Because did it have to be fought that
that that that I I would argue uh the
Second World War by the time we got to
1940? Probably yes. But I take the
thesis of my old friend and tutor AJP
Taylor. Allan's point is this and I
think it applies to the First World War
in its time as well. really with the
Munich system uh in a way you could see
when the Munich settlement the piece of
paper appeasement over uh Czechoslovakia
was achieved he said in a way that was
achievement of diplomacy it's rather
like Iran talks at the moment you've got
to put in the basement the ground floor
and build on it and they should have
built on it they didn't know how to do
it then the whole system broke down
arguably you could have avoided the
first world war and very likely had they
been clever from the very end of the
first world war through you could have
avoided the second the second world war.
We could hindsight's a wonderful
wonderful thing and journalists indulge
in it as much as as much as historians
but it was it was a chapter of terrible
terrible mistakes and as usual it's a
wonderful march of folly and and and
stupidity and that is what is so
upsetting because I'm very worried about
the good war thesis by the way because
then you say good wars uh the
implication of the studs turk uh oral
histories of is fought by good guys and
this perhaps was uh the approach of a
very famous war correspondent like Ernie
Pile GI Joe but as actually Ernie Pile
who was a terrific journalist said GI
Joe Joe was in the mud and in the pooh
as much as everybody and as much from
their commanders I mean sort of things
with the second world war just thinking
we're going to come up to the
commemoration of the D-Day landings the
liberation of Europe they bombed 75,000
French civilians to death in the opening
month and a half of the D-Day uh uh the
D-Day invasion or the D-Day li
liberation. Yes, I'm being contrary. I'm
being I'm being what I was brought up to
be. And I was brought up to just inquire
about the news past, present, and future
and look at it in in the face. There's a
lot of sentimentality that goes with
history. And this is where I agree with
you. You will get go from shock andor to
schllock andor. you will get very very
sentimental and you get this sort of
quai mlin celebratory mood. There's
nothing to celebrate about world war at
all except perhaps the liberation of
women and appalling that women can could
be released into the workplace to
responsible activity. Then they tried to
put the lid on. I'm just talking about
this country uh that it had to happen
that way. Why on earth? No, we're at the
uh anniversary of course of the Russian
Revolution. Lenon upon coming to power
opened the books and the secret dealings
for example in the Middle East and
people which you're quite right George
because everybody forgets that it wasn't
just between Britain and France it was
Britain France and Russia and the
Guardian. Indeed the Manchester Guardian
uh revealed Lenin's discoveries. Indeed.
Indeed. A fantastic interview. You
really are the Dwen of war reporters and
uh and analysts of the grizzly arts of
war. Robert Fox of the Evening Standard
in London. Thank you for joining us on
Sputnik. Well, at this point in the
show, we listen to you through our
internet portal, on Twitter,
RT_Sputnik. We receive your point of
view and Guyatri processes it. How has
it been this week? Well, it's been very
very busy. People have been supplying us
with a lot a lot of feedback uh on the
question how they feel about the first
world war. For example, Anthony
Rodriguez says, "My view of World War I
is that the last time the world went to
war based on monarchist ties, ancient
treaties, family and blood links." India
adds to him saying, "If only Queen
Victoria had still been alive, she could
have put her grandsons across the knee
and spanked them." Well, that's a very
good point. It was two cousins. The king
and the Kaiser were cousins with the
same grandmother, the English Queen
Victoria. If only she could have sorted
it out around the dinner table. I also
asked the people uh how they feel about
spying, whether they feel threatened and
whether their internet behavior has
changed. And um well, a bit of the same
u response from the streets of London.
Saul Hudson, for example, says, "Never
labored under the illusion that our mail
and phone calls were not being
monitored. All governments do it well.
But the gathering hay, as it was put in
the parliamentary session, if someone
had said before the internet existed,
that every single letter you ever write
or receive will be opened by a
government agent and copied and stored.
There would have been a revolution on
the streets of Britain. I'm amazed that
people have gone so calmly, quietly into
this good night. Well, perhaps because
at the time it was physical. Yeah, it
was really had to open it. opened the
seal and now everything's virtual.
Everything our identities are all out
there indeed. Martin adds, uh, it gives
those in power a false sense of
security. Too much data for them to deal
with. # lose it on a train anyway. Well,
I mean, they are. They say they're
gathering all the hay so that they can
find the needle. But so many times they
don't find any needle even though the
needle is out there and and and an idiot
in a hurry could have spotted it. The
Woolitch murder uh for example uh the
person accused alleged to have committed
that awful murder was preaching every
Friday and Saturday in the main streets
of South London this message of hate and
fanaticism. Yet he doesn't appear to
have been under any surveillance whilst
you, me and everyone else here in this
studio is under surveillance. Our hay is
being gathered and looked at. Nabila Ali
however thinks that every country must
be sensitive about his security. So
what's wrong about that? Well, everybody
needs security. But if you sacrifice
liberty for security, you'll end up with
neither liberty nor security. So said
Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding
fathers of the good old United States of
America. That though is all that we have
got time for. I hope you enjoyed the
first edition of Sputnik and that you'll
come aboard with us next week at the
same time. So, please keep your tweets
coming at RT Sputnik. Goodbye from me,
Gay and from me, George Galloway. It's
been marvelous.
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