On 18th July 2013 it will be ten years since the body of Dr. David Kelly was found at Harrowdown Hill.
On 4th July a book entitled "Dark Actors - The Life and Death of Dr. David Kelly" is to be published.
As far as I know it is the only conventional book scheduled to be published around the tenth anniversary of Dr. Kelly's death.
Robert Lewis's book is a worthwhile but imperfect addition to the information publicly available on the life and death of David Kelly. Not least of the imperfections, in my view, is that Lewis wrongly concludes that David Kelly committed suicide.
The book starts with a description of the events surrounding the disappearance and death of David Kelly.
The first sentence in the book is widely accepted but open
to question by those who have studied the timelines of events in
detail. There are further minor inaccuracies throughout the chapter.
That chapter is followed by others which attempt to document David Kelly's early life in South Wales, his training as a microbiologist, his early academic research and his appointment to Porton Down.
A later chapter is devoted to David Kelly's role in debriefing the Soviet defector Vladimir Pasechnik, a role that brought David Kelly much closer to MI6 than had been the case while he was at Porton Down.
Lewis then proceeds to examine in considerable detail the UNSCOM (United Nations Special Commission) inspections in Iraq, in which David Kelly played a significant role, visiting Iraq more than 30 times.
The book ends with a chapter recording Lewis's somewhat wistful wanderings around Southmoor and his visit to Harrowdown Hill. To my mind the book peters out since Lewis's analysis of the death of David Kelly is the weakest part of the book.
Lewis is a skilled story-teller. He uses those skills to weave a narrative which, fairly often, is short on facts and, at times, short on accuracy. Despite those limitations it tells us more about the life of David Kelly than any other source that I'm aware of.
Lewis skillfully moves from detailed description of his, sometimes frustrating, detective work about David Kelly to a wider picture of world events at the time and then returns to points of detail about David Kelly's life. It's a story well-told.
Lewis's portrait of David Kelly is a much more nuanced and credible one than the pseudo-saintly picture of a shy Dr. Kelly painted at the discredited Hutton Inquiry. David Kelly was a skilled communicator who was experienced in handling the media and, like many other experienced civil servants, publicly toed the Government line - at least he did during the UNSCOM inspection period.
Lewis indicates that Kelly, at least after debriefing Pasechnik, was close to MI6 and hints that, in meeting Andrew Gilligan, Kelly was acting as part of an MI6 damage limitation exercise. To what extent was David Kelly MI6's creature? We don't know but Lewis raises important new questions.
One of the potentially important claims is the allegation that David Kelly's security clearance had been withdrawn before his death. Lewis quotes Gisli Gudjonsson as saying that the security clearance had been withdrawn. Contrast that with the picture painted at the Hutton Inquiry of a David Kelly supposedly being considered for a knighthood.
Another interesting detail is the claim that Janice Kelly wrote widely to friends and relatives of David Kelly asking them not to mention him again. A very odd thing for a widow to do, if it happened. Unfortunately Lewis doesn't back this claim up with evidence, although it would be a fascinating action by Janice Kelly if substantiated.
Lewis also alleges that a phone call was made from a public phone box in Southmoor to a national newspaper (likely the Daily Telegraph) on the afternoon of 17th July 2003. Was that call made by David Kelly? Had David Kelly decided to "blow the gaff" on the false September 2002 WMD dossier produced under Alastiar Campbell's direction?Was the call made to avoid prying ears on Kelly's landline and mobile phone? We're not told.
Lewis, I think, misses a trick in his examination of David Kelly's views and actions around WMD. He documents Kelly's conversion to the Bahai faith but fails to consider whether it might have changed the compliant Kelly of the UNSCOM period to someone more concerned with truth in 2002 and 2003.
Lewis has added significantly to what we know about David Kelly's life. His analysis of Dr. Kelly's death is the weakest part of the book and his conclusion that David Kelly committed suicide is, in my view, demonstrably unreliable. However, Lewis's researches raise some important and intriguing new questions.
It's an interesting, thought-provoking read.
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