WikiLeaks - The Secret Life of a Superpower Part 1. BBC Documentary

BBC Documentary about WikiLeaks

It was the scoop of the century.

WikiLeaks lifts the curtain on the secret communications between Washington

and the diplomats that we have stationed all over the globe.

I'm not aware of any release of information in human history comparable to the amount that was released via WikiLeaks.

These were cables that show the super power's secret thought.

It was hard for me to look Secretary Clinton in the eye when she was like, "How did this happen?"

A quarter of a million US diplomatic messages apparently stolen by one of their own soldiers;

turned into a global sensation by a whistle-blowing website and it's controversial founder, Julian Assange.

I like crushing bastards.

I think every diplomat around the world would have one overwriting thought, "Thank God! It wasn't me," and "Thank God! It's not us."

In the first in-depth television analysis of the secret cables,

we lift the lid on how the world's greatest super power does business and how it gets what it wants.

We reveal a super power on a mission to change the world.

But a super power that sometimes fails to live up to its own ideals.

It's a complete outrage --

Diplomats stepping in to attempt to obstruct the course of the criminal investigation.

Over a year has passed since the leaking of the cables.

[Protests]

Now we assess what the impact of the leak has been in the US and beyond.

And we ask, can American Diplomacy ever be the same again?

They don't trust you anymore.

Many of them don't, and it will take a long time, I think, to recover that trust.

[WIKILEAKS: The Secret Life of A Superpower]

It's late November 2010.

Two journalists arrive at the US State Department in Washington DC --

The enormous ministry that controls America's relationship with the rest of the world.

They're not here for a friendly chat.

They're about to blow the lid on America's diplomatic secrets.

They were maybe a dozen senior officials and, behind them,

you know, at least a dozen more minions taking notes on laptops and so on.

They represented not just the State Department

but all of the intelligence agencies and the defense department.

They did not look happy.

The US State Department was facing a crisis unlike any other.

A quarter of a million internal messages or cables between Washington and US embassies all over the world

had found their way into the hands of the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks

and, from there, to five major newspapers.

Their message at the opening of the meeting, in uncertain terms, was "You've been given stolen material -- classified material.

There would be grave consequences if you publish any of it."

At that meeting, one of the people leading the state department's response to the crisis was P.J. Crowley.

These stories resulted from a crime.

For us, this was still classified material.

It was our responsibility to, you know, continue to protect them.

The State Department was right to be worried.

The cables reveal what American diplomats say when they think the world will never know --

Who they trust and who they mock,

what they want and how they get it.

"Some inside the US government dismiss [Berlusconi] as feckless, vain, and ineffective as a modern European leader."

"Merkel is risk averse and rarely creative."

"Gaddafi relies heavily on his long-time Ukranian nurse, who has been described as a 'voluptuous blonde."

Detailed records from thousands of secret meetings and conversations involving US diplomats

were about to become a media sensation.

"Bank of England Governor Mervyn King expressed great concern about Conservative leaders' lack of experience."

"It was related that King Abdullah remains a heavy smoker, regularly receives hormone injections, and 'uses Viagra excessively."

Here were records of American diplomats' secret plans and strategies, their uncertainties and fears.

"We should aim at influencing the narrow group of individuals that surround him."