Latest update September 20th, 2026 10:40 AM
“Wikileaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy.” A brief review
Mark Benschop brought a copy of this fantastic book for me 12 days ago. A few weeks ago, on this page, I alerted readers to its imminent publication and urged my colleagues in the media to read it. The book is 330 pages (I’m not counting the index pages) but only 250 are devoted to the story of how Assange came to deliver the now famous US cables to four top European newspapers and the leading broadsheet in the US, the New York Times.
The rest of the book is a reproduction of some of the cables, some of which have not been reproduced by the Guardian and the New York Times and which are quite depressing to read, especially the ones on Nigeria.
The best part of the book I enjoyed is page 166. After I quote the section I find amusingly fascinating, I’ll tell you why. Here we go; “David Leigh (Guardian reporter) objected, however, to the presence of Stephens and Robinson (Assange’s lawyers). This was an editorial meeting (of the Guardian), he protested. If Assange was going to have lawyers there, the Guardian needed lawyers.
Rusbridger (Guardian’s editor-in-chief) went off to try and raise a lawyer. The Guardian’s head of legal was cycling home and could not hear her Blackberry ringing, so Geraldine Proudler, from the legal firm, Olswang, who had fought many battles on behalf of the Guardian in the past, was interrupted at her gym and jumped in a taxi.” (end of quote)
This passage tells us a lot about people and the different cultures of the world. The Guardian newspaper (of the UK) is one of the globe’s top media houses.
Its lawyer would be crème de la crème in the British legal profession. Obviously, she would be driving an expensive SUV. But the lady was cycling home.
Which member of the professional classes in Guyana would dare mount a bicycle even if he/she lived four or five blocks away from the work-place (Third World people are so pretensive).
Secondly, it goes to show that no matter how post-modern the world is the function and success of technology depend on the biology of human beings. Britain uses state of the art technology. No doubt the Guardian newspaper is printed using sophisticated technology. But in what must be one of the Guardian’s most important meetings in decades, it could not get hold of its legal adviser.
This book tells a complicated story of the relationship between a man who is a fanatical political activist (Assange) with no formal journalistic training and no background in the media, and a group of esteemed, famous professional media practitioners.
What emerged is a complex relationship based on mutual distrust and deep misunderstanding.
The book is written by two Guardian staff members and it is not difficult to see that there is more sympathy for the press than the world of people like Julian Assange.
There are times, when Assange thinks that the journalists are mainstream bureaucrats who have loyalty only to themselves while the media people think that Assange is too impressed with his importance. It comes down to what is your goal in life.
Assange wanted publication of Governments’ misbehaviour around the world. The newspapers were not interested in the political consequences of the release of the cables. From reading the book, this seems to be the cause of the confusion.
It is clear from this publication that the Guardian and New York Times players do not see Assange as a genuine human rights crusader. It has to do with his behavioral traits, a style in political activists that journalists would not understand. I see a little bit of that everyday in the relation between Mark Benschop, which is the closest thing we have to Julian Assange in this country, and the mainstream media.
But David Leigh and Luke Harding (the authors) seem convinced that Assange is not your run-of-the mill anti-establishment zealot. They genuinely think that Assange has a troubled mind.
The New York Times did an unflattering job on him which according to the authors made life with Assange at times impossible to bear (see page chapter 13, “Uneasy Partners.”)
Since this publication, Assange’s closest working partner, Daniel Domscheit-Berg (aka Daniel Schmitt) has broken with Wikileaks and has published a devastating evaluation of Assange (“Inside Wikileaks: My Time with Julian Assange at the World’s Most Dangerous Website.”).
Whether we hate or love Assange, Wikileaks has changed the nature of diplomacy and journalism in the age of the internet.
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