TRANSCRIPT

Programme(s) Breakfast BBC1

Date & time Monday 21st July 2003 0734
Subject / interviewee Dr Kelly- Tom Mangold
Prepared by: Irene Blake
Contact numbers: 020 7276 1080- Pager 07659 137 572 - 24hrs, every day

Sian Williams : We're going to get some more now on the death of the Government
scientist Dr David Kelly and speak to the journalist Tom Mangold. Now he was a
close friend of Dr Kelly, also of course a respected BBC correspondent for many
years and he joins us now. Good mornrng to you . . .
Tom Mangold (Friend of Dr Kelly) : Good morning.
SW : . thanks very much for being with us Mr Mangold. Andrew Gilligan has said
Dr Kelly was not misquoted or misrepresented in any way. Has this all come down
to one man's word against another's?
TM : Well I'm not sure it is because my understanding is that I quite accept the fact
that Andrew says that he was briefed by Dr Kelly on some of the wider allegations
but I think that Gilligan then tried to check some of these allegations out, he's an
accredited Defence Correspondent, with members of the Defence intelligence staff.
And I understand he received neither confirmation nor denial So he felt it was worth
pursuing his enquiries a little further and that he did subsequently find a political
figure who did confirm the story for him. So it isn't just Gilfigan versus the memory of
whatever Kelly said . But let me add one more point which I find puzzling . The BBC
has the best correspondents in the world and it has a dedicated Security
Correspondent Frank Gardner who I happen to think is rather good . I am puzzled
that there has been no corroborative evidence coming up from people like Frank
Gardner, from Andy Marr, from Bridget Kendall, from Peter Taylor who are reporters
with excellent contacts in the business and who you might have expected would by
now have delivered the goods.
SW: Yes although of course we know that Dr Kelly also spoke to otherjournalists
including Susan Watts of Newsnight and, and . . .
TM : Well he also spoke to, to Gavin Hewitt on the Ten o'clock News, that was an
omission in, in Richard Sambrook's statement last night. And if you look at the
transcript of the Ten o'clock News there's no real reference to the wider allegations
and I understand that Dr Kelly did not repeat them to Gavin Hewitt
SW: Right, when you say the wider allegations are you talking about the role that
Alastair Campbell played in all this? I mean could Dr Kelly have inferred to Andrew
Gilligan that Mr Campbell was behind some of this or not?
TM : I, I, I think you'll find that's not quite the case . I think you'll find that Campbell's
name came up sort of generically and when there was a discussion about could this
report have been spun, when you talk about spinning you come up with Campbell's
name but I, my feeling is, I could be completely wrong on this, that this may be the
weakest part of the story.
SW: Right, as you say 1, l mean we don Y know because it is one man's word
against another, one of whom is, is now dead. I want to talk though about Dr Kelly's
last email that he sent when he talked of dark actors playing games . .
TM : Yeah .
SW: . . . in, in that email that he sent to the New York Times. Who do you think he
was referring to when he said that?
TM : I wouldn't read too much into that . My feeling is that that was very Welsh and
very Kelly and that's the way he would talk I think what he was trying to say to, to
the, his friend on the New York Times was I've met some awful people in the last
few weeks, I can't wait to be rid of them. You've got to bear in mind that on the
morning of his death he also sent a very nice email to one of his good friends in the
UN Inspectorate, a woman called Gabriella (indistinct) a German inspector and he
said to her, it was a nice email in which he said I look forward to working with you in
Iraq very shortly. So I think there were a lot of conflicting emotions in his mind on
that morning. But I'm not a conspiracy theorist and I don't think Kelly was referring
to anything dark in that sense of the word .
SW: Right, although we do know that he was very upset by that Foreign Affairs
Committee hearing that . . .
TM : Absolutely.
SW: . . that he was being questioned by but he's not 1 mean you know him very well
he wasnY an unworldly or, or nalve man . . .
TM : No.
SW: . . . do you, do you think . . .
TM : That's the amazing thing I mean this, this was a tough man who took the worst
that the (indistinct) could throw at him and nobody's spoken about his record in the
Soviet Union. You have no idea what he uncovered in the Soviet Union . The most
evil programmes for the weapons of mass destruction ever devised by man . He
established that the Soviets had missiles ready to go, loaded with smallpox and
anthrax, one of them pointing at London .
SW: So . . .
TM : He worked on all this so why he should crack under this strain remains a bit of
a puzzle to me.
SW: Okay Tom Mangold, got to leave it there I'm afraid. Thank you very much for
being with us.
End