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318 TURBULENCE AND TERROR
also allowed the solicitors of the widows to speak to two of the
technicians who were not taken, once they had been security
vetted. 64 With the support of the trade union, Beryl Turner, the
widow of Charles Turner, pursued an action alleging government
negligence in which her husband was described as 'a civil
servant'. She argued that the attack was 'reasonably foreseeable',
given that 'certain American personnel employed in a
similar capacity to the deceased', as well as the Israeli Consul
General, had been kidnapped in the previous twelve months,
and that the GCHQ staff were not warned, no secure accommodation
was offefed and no guards provided. Understandably,
what seemed to vex her most was the fact that the landlord
who had provided the accommodation for the technicians was
a local leader of the TPLA.65
GCHQ attempted to argue that, at the time, the violent attacks
had seemed to be limited to Ankara and Istanbul. However, this
was not the case, since the militants had previously mounted
a failed attack on the sigint base at Dakiyir in remote southeast
Turkey, making it clear that all such sites were vulnerable.
At that point, stronger security measures probably should have
been taken. Moreover, although warning circulars reached
British staff at diplomatic premises, they were 'not sent to
personnel at the operational sites'.66 In the event, the action
never went to trial since GCHQ - wisely perhaps - opted to
settle out of court. 67 Compensation of £10,000 was paid to the
families, although the GCHQ aspect of the case was not publicly
revealed until a debate in the House of Commons ten years
later. 68
For GCHQ, the deaths of Gordon Banner, Charles Turner and
John Law were a terrible tragedy. Since the 1950s, the agency
had realised that collecting sigint on the Eastern Bloc would
mean more short-range collection, more special operations and
more risk. Yet the British prided themselves on their professionalism,
and had lost no one in their overflights and secret
submarine missions, despite some close calls. This reflected a
mixture of sound risk-assessment and a measure of good luck.