Messa-e Page 2 of 7

-----Original Message-----
From : Gavyn Davies [mailto:gavyn .davies@bbc.co.uk]
Sent : 21 July 2003 20 :44
To: HOGG, Baroness
Subject: RE : E-Mail from BBC Chairman

Sarah - Very many thanks, as always From what I know, Dr Kelly did indeed have
considerable access to intelligence in the relevant area and I do not think there was an~
material misleading of the public on that score Keep in touch -- GO

-----Original Message-----
From : HOGG, Baroness [mailto :HoggS@parliament .uk]
Sent : 21 July 2003 19 :03
To : Gavyn Davies
Subject: RE : E-Mail from BBC Chairman

PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL

Thanks for this - very clear and helpful On the "senior intelligence source"
descriptor I don't think we should rush to the conclusion we were misled and/or
therefore misled others The key question is in disguising its source, did the BBC
mislead by gving him a descriptor that implied knowledge or status he did not
have'? If he indeed had full access to intelligence in this area, he was surely a
source of information on intelligence - and it is clear he had great expertise and
experience on these issues, his "seniority" is being attested to daily (To make a
no doubt unfair comparison, it was not like describing an elderly thesis
downloaded from the internet as "intelhigence" )

On a wider front, I don't think you should be afraid to make some public, sensible
and moderate comments (not too much hand-wringing just steady under fire) -
when you see the right moment

-----Original Message -----

From : Gavyn Davies Emailto:gavyn .davies@bbc.co.uk]
Sent : 21 July 2003 14 :56
To: ryder@parliament .uk; zzFabian Monds-PRIVATE;
irene.adams@weir.co.uk; gjiSO@dial .pipex .com ; ranjit.s@ukonfine .cc .uk;
hoggs@parliament,uk; dgleeson@mjgleeson .com ; zzDermot Gleeson,
zzDame Pauline Nevflle-Jones; Ruth Deech-INTERNET;
angela .sarkis@btinternet .com ; Simon Milner-SEC ; Catherine East; Helen
Tunley ; r.m .jones@bangor .ac.uk
Subject: E-Mail from BBC Chairman

PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL

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2-2/08/1200i
 PaQe 3 of 7

Dear Governors

As I mentioned in my e-mail last week, my natural pessimism

was telling me that the WMD story was far from over, despite
the general support which the Governors and the BBC were
getting from many sources at the time . However, even at my
most pessimistic, I certainly never anticipated the tragic turn of
events which has happened since then This has created an
entirely new situation, in which all of us will have to re-examine
our conduct

You will have seen that the BBC has now confirmed that David
Kelly was the primary source for the Gilligan story on the
Today programme on 29 May, and was the source for the
Susan Watts stories on Newsnight on 2 and 4 June This will
result in the BBC and the Governors being asked a number of
very direct questions about our role in the events of the last six
weeks In the first few hours following the BBC announcement
there have been a huge number of red herrings thrown into the
air. Some of the attacks which have been aimed at the BBC
and the Governors have been based on complete
misunderstandings of the facts, but that will not stop them from
being endlessly repeated

I have been thinking about the main issues which will be

thrown at us and the organisation. Here is my current take on
the key issues . given my present state of knowledge

1. Did Andrew Gilligan accurately report the words of

David Kelly in the story on Today?

As we were told at our special Governors' meeting . senior

management has seen the contemporaneous notes of the
meeting with David Kelly taken by Andrew Gilligan
Management is satisfied that the notes are consistent with
Gilligan's report, and that and accurately reported what he had
been told by Dr. Kelly . Most of the salient features of the
Gilligan report were repeated by Susan Watts on Newsnight

Susan Watts quoted her source as saying that in the run-

up to publishing the dossier, the Government was obsessed
with finding intelligence on immediate Iraqi threats . The
Government's insistence that the Iraqi threat was imminent was
a Downing St interpretation of intelligence conclusions She
added that the source said that "people at top of the ladder
didn't want to hear some of the things", and said "that's why
there is the argument between the intelligence services and the
Cabinet Office/Number 10" To me, these quotes substantiate
the burden of Andrew Gilligan's report .

2. Did David Kelly know what he was doing, or was he

duped?
 Dr. Kelly attended a meeting with Andrew Gilligan at the
Charing Cross Hotel, He had several telephone conversations
with Susan Watts He also talked to Gavin Hewitt from the 10
o'clock news, who reported his words along similar, if much
briefer, lines to Gilligan and Watts Dr Kelly was very
experienced in talking to the press It seems likely that he
knew exactly what he was doing in talking in such similar terms
to several journalists . For example . he gave permission to
Andrew Gilligan to take notes One interpretation is that, as a
scrupulously honest man, he was so troubled by the
circumstances surrounding the preparation of the dossier that
he knowingly put his doubts into the public domain

3. Did the BBC correctly describe the nature of their

source?

Almost throughout the process, BBC reports have

described the source as "one of the senior officials in charge of
drawing up the dossier" That is clearly true On a few
occasions, he has been described as a "senior intelligence
source", including being so-described by Andrew Gilligan,
Richard Sambrook and the Governors . On the question of the
Governors' statement, I can say that I wrote that description
without knowing the name of the source when our statement
was being prepared

It is clear that Dr Kelly was not a member of the

intelligence services himself. But it is also clear that Dr Kelly
had access to some very relevant intelligence material, as he
confirmed to the Select Committee last Tuesday He said "I
see the intelligence which is relevant to my expertise which is
in the area of chemical and biological weapons, and I am
alerted to relevant intelligence" .

4. Should the BBC have carried a story of such gravity

based on only one source?

This comes back to the Governors' meeting, where we

decided that correct procedures had been followed by the
Today programme . There is no new evidence on this matter.
However, now that we know the name of the source, we can all
come to a view on whether the source was in fact correctly
described, and was sufficiently senior and credible to run the
story without other direct corroboration I wjif not attempt to
pre-judge your views on this, but personally I am not
particularly troubled by the criticism we are getting on this
matter.

5. Should the BBC have withdrawn the allegations

against Alastair Campbell when they were categorically
denied by the Prime Minister and others?

Some of the precise claims made by David Kelly were

Message Page 5 of 7

subsequently shown to be true This increased his general

credibility after the original broadcast on 29 May. Many of the
things denied by No 10 were never claimed by the source or
by the BBC All of the government denials were given full
coverage by the BBC in countless programmes It is not clear
on what basis the BBC could have withdrawn the allegations
made by David Kelly and reported by Gilligan and Watts
Putting it bluntly, should the BBC "withdraw" any and all of its
news reports as soon as they are denied by the government
press machine? Surely not

6. Why did the BBC not make it known that David Kelly
was the source earlier on?

Hopefully this will become obvious to everyone In order

to protect the name of a source, who was himself not admitting
to his employer everything it is claimed he said to BBC
journalists, it was necessary to maintain confidentiality about
his name while he was still alive. Now that he has died, the
BBC has no source to protect, and BBC News could therefore
confirm that he was the source (after consulting his family) If
we had confirmed that he was the source when Geoff Hoon
asked us to do so last week, we would have in effect had been
telling the Ministry of Defence that Dr Kelly had possibly misled
the MoD about the extent of what he said to BBC journalists
The BBC would have been in effect exposing him to his
employer That would have been a very odd way to protect a
source .

7. Did the Chairman deliberately mislead the Governors

by using the description "senior intelligence source" in
the Governors' statement.

I hope that you feel that i did not do so While I obviously

had my suspicions, I genuinely did not know that the BBC
source was Dr . Kelly until last Friday And in any event I do not
think that the description used in our statement was in any
meaningful sense misleading given Dr Kelly's access to
intelligence material

S. Should the Governors re-examine the style of BBC

news reporting, especially in the realm of investigative
journalism rather than reporting the news?

I will be guided by all of you on this question I am sure

that there is a general desire among Governors to look again at
the general style of BBC news reporting, and the question of
training and maintaining standards, as well as the question of
writing articles for outside newspapers We can come to this
once the current firestorm has died down

This extraordinary series of events has put

unprecedented strains on the BBC, its governance and its
management I continue to believe that our structures have

22/09/2003
message PaLye 6 of 7

survived very well under intense pressure This is in no small

part due to the support which the Board has given to me, and
also to the Director General, and to the solidity which you have
all shown . I am very grateful for this indeed As ever, please
let me have any observations you may have about recent
events.

Best wishes

Gavyn

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