WikiLeaks 2 (letter)

by Frank Bellet

News Weekly, December 25, 2010
Sir,

Apparently, the scoffers at the importance and dangers of the WikiLeaks documents are not aware that there is a war on - different from World War II but a war nevertheless.

It was declared in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, just as the Pacific War was declared decades before on December 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbour.

Could you imagine during World War II some army private and his accomplices, for example, leaking information about that smart plan by the British, who tricked the Nazis as to where they intended to invade Europe to end the war?

British authorities took possession of the body of a Welsh alcoholic, who died from pneumonia, contrary to how it was depicted in the 1956 movie The Man Who Never Was. (The true story of this affair is told in Ben MacIntyre's new book, Operation Mincemeat, which was reviewed in News Weekly, November 13, 2010, and is advertised in this issue on page 21).

They released the corpse from a submarine, near the Spanish coast, with a set of false papers in a briefcase attached to his wrist with "details" of the invasion. They were certain it would fall into the hands of the enemy. They also included papers suggesting he was a Catholic in the belief that the Spaniards would ensure he had a religious burial.

If the newspapers had wind of that plot, there is no way they would have made headlines of the story, on the basis of the public's right to know, nor would they have provided one of the leakers with an article defending himself.

I have always been of the opinion that all is not fair in love, but it is fair in war.

Frank Bellet,
Petrie, Qld