Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist (10 page)

Chapter 4 -
No Nukes Now!

My PhD struggles gave me an introduction to the world of environmental politics and I wanted to make a change. The Don’t Make a Wave Committee’s plan to oppose U.S. hydrogen bomb tests seemed like a perfect opportunity. About 20 of us gathered regularly in the basement of the Unitarian church to plan this crazy voyage across the North Pacific. Jim and Marie Bohlen were Quakers from Pennsylvania who had immigrated to Canada so that their sons would not be drafted into the Vietnam War. An MIT engineering graduate, Jim had become a pacifist during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He had been designing heat-resistant nose-cones for nuclear missiles when he realized he was part of the problem. Irving and Dorothy Stowe, from Rhode Island, were also expatriate Americans with a similar story. Only Irving was a lawyer and a fierce anti-American orator. The complement was rounded out by a dozen or so Canadians, mostly young like myself and mostly newly arrived to the protest scene.

We had all grown up under the daily threat of an all-out nuclear war between the United States and the former Soviet Union. Everyone knew it would be the end of civilization as we knew it and the environment would take a heavy toll. The prospect of a nuclear winter following a nuclear exchange galvanized us into joining the fight to save the earth from such a fate.

A benefit concert was organized in Vancouver featuring Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, the late Phil Oakes, and a local band called Chilliwack after a local town in British Columbia. This raised $20,000 for the cause, pretty good money at the time, allowing us to charter an 85-foot halibut fishing boat named the
Phyllis Cormack
. The skipper, John Cormack (the boat was named after his wife), was a veteran of the Bering Sea halibut fishery, so he knew the waters at the H-bomb test site and how to get there.

A bit of history. The first successful atomic bomb was tested by the United States in the desert outside Alamogordo, New Mexico, in July of 1945. This was followed less than a month later by the bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki three days later, bringing an end to World War II. The world had suddenly and horrifically entered the nuclear age, with all its threats and promises. The Soviet Union followed the U.S. with a successful atomic bomb test in August of 1949. Then came Britain in 1952, France in 1960, and China in 1964. By 1971, nearly 500 atomic bombs had been detonated in the atmosphere around the world, with the U.S. and Soviet Union each responsible for more than 200 atmospheric tests and dozens of underground tests.

Most people think of the Cold War as an ideological war. But the Cold War was as hot as they come in terms of radioactive fallout. Hundreds of different radioactive elements are created during an atomic blast, including biologically dangerous isotopes such as cesium-137, strontium-90, and iodine-131. In the days, weeks, and even years following a blast these radioactive particles rain down on the land and sea.

Many of the elements in nuclear fallout decay very rapidly and pose little threat. But a few longer-lived isotopes are particularly nasty because they are selectively absorbed and concentrated by plants and animals. Our body can’t tell the difference between normal iodine, which is not radioactive, and radioactive iodine-131. Iodine is an essential nutrient, so our digestive system absorbs it from our food, sending most of it to the thyroid gland in our neck. This is why people exposed to nuclear fallout are at high risk of contracting thyroid cancer; their body sends the radioactive iodine to the gland and concentrates it there.

Strontium-90 is even more insidious; it is not an essential nutrient, but it mimics calcium, which is the main element in our bones. We can’t distinguish between calcium and strontium, so our blood carries the radioactive strontium-90 right to our bone marrow, where red blood cells are produced. This is why people exposed to fallout are at higher risk of developing leukemia or bone cancer.

Cesium-137 mimics potassium, an essential nutrient that is distributed throughout the body. Our system thinks cesium-137 is potassium and sends it all around, increasing the risk for many types of cancer.

Up until 1951, nuclear bombs were relatively small. The two bombs dropped on Japan, for example, were 15,000 and 25,000 tons of TNT equivalent, or 15 and 25 kilotons. But the development of the hydrogen bomb in 1952 marked the beginning of the thermonuclear age, when the bombs became a thousand times more powerful. The hydrogen bomb depends on nuclear fusion (combining hydrogen atoms) in addition to nuclear fission (splitting uranium or plutonium atoms). Nuclear fusion is the same process that powers our sun.

Scientists soon realized atmospheric fallout from these new, more powerful weapons posed a serious health risk. In addition to the direct threat that humans and other animals would breathe in the radioactive dust, radioactive particles fell on crops and pastures, contaminating food, dairy products in particular. As a result of this knowledge the U.S., U.S.S.R., and Britain signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty in 1963, which banned atmospheric weapons tests. France did not sign this treaty and continued testing weapons above ground until 1974.

After signing the treaty, the U.S. focused on underground testing of atomic bombs in the Nevada desert, where there was a long-established test range. Even these relatively small tests shook the buildings in Las Vegas. It was simply not possible to test hydrogen bombs there; they would break windows in the casinos. Prior to the treaty the U.S. had tested its hydrogen bombs on Bikini atoll in the South Pacific, exposing islanders to large doses of radioactivity. If the American government wanted to continue testing thermonuclear weapons, it had to find somewhere outside the lower 48 states to do so.

It didn’t take long for the Atomic Energy Agency to identify Amchitka Island, halfway out the far-flung Aleutians, as the perfect place to play with the ultimate weapon. It was well removed from New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, or any other likely source of complaint. In the era of superpower dominance, it didn’t seem to matter that Amchitka was closer to Japan, Russia, Korea, China, and Canada than it was to the U.S., with the exception of sparsely populated Alaska. This turned out to be a bit of an oversight on America’s part.

Project Cannikin would be the largest underground nuclear test the U.S. had carried out. Scheduled for October 6, 1971, the five-megaton device was designed to proof-test a warhead for the Spartan antiballisticmissile program.

This photo was taken in Klemtu on the Central Coast of British Columbia in September 1971, on the way to Alaska to protest the U.S. hydrogen bomb tests. I had become a radical environmental activist and would never look back. Ben Metcalfe is on the left and Bill Darnell, who coined the name Greenpeace, is on the right.Photo: Robert Keziere

On September 15, 1971, we set off from Vancouver to confront the H-bomb: 11 activists plus Captain J.C. Cormack. It was an epic voyage with terrible storms and serious mechanical breakdowns. But we made headway, taking a straight course from the north shore of the Queen Charlotte Islands across the North Pacific to the first islands in the Aleutian chain. About three days after leaving sight of land a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft buzzed us. Clearly we had the attention of the authorities; no doubt the CIA, the Coast Guard, the Atomic Energy Commission, and even the White House were tracking our progress. Then we received troubling news. The Atomic Energy Commission had decided to delay the test one month; the new date was November 6. October 6 was late enough in the season, but the new schedule would push us well into severe winter weather. Suddenly nature became a serious factor in our ability to reach the test site. At the time we believed the delay was an effort to make our mission impossible. We later learned that technical problems in the underground cavity where the bomb would be placed caused the delay.

After a week of being tossed around in the open sea we arrived at the tiny Aleut village of Akutan on the island of the same name. The residents had known John Cormack for many years and we were welcomed as friends. Whiskey costs an arm and a leg in these far-flung places, so they make raisin wine; it’s a little rough but it does the trick.

On our second day in Akutan, at anchor in the calm bay, the watchman saw a ship approaching. It turned out to be the U.S. Coast Guard cutter
Confidence
and it was coming right for us. John Cormack’s sense of humor mixed with drama as he ordered the anchor weighed, fired up the engine, and motored full ahead up the inlet. It was a dead end, of course, and with the cutter in hot pursuit we eventually had to stop and lower the anchor again. But at least we got a boat chase.

At the height of our campaign against U.S. H-bomb testing, we posed aboard the Phyllis Cormack in Akutan Harbor. From the top left: Bob Hunter, myself, Bob Cummings, Ben Metcalfe, Dave Birmingham. From the bottom left: Dick Fineberg, Lyle Thurston, Jim Bohlen, Terry Simmons, Bill Darnell, and Captain John Cormack. Photographer Bob Keziere, who took the photo, and crewmember Rod Marining, who joined later, are not shown. Photo: Robert Keziere

The cutter came to a stop about 200 yards off our stern and we watched as a launch was lowered, boarded by four people, and then motored toward us. It arrived alongside carrying three seamen and the captain. The captain boarded our boat without asking permission, heading to the wheelhouse, where John Cormack was waiting for him.

We found out later we had been interdicted for failing to clear Customs and Immigration before landing in Akutan. It was true we had overlooked this minor technicality, knowing full well we would have been refused entry if we had checked in with the authorities at nearby Dutch Harbor.

While the skipper of the
Confidence
was reading the riot act to Captain Cormack, one of the Coast Guard crew passed us a hastily typed and crumpled note that read, “If it were not for these military bonds, we would be with you.” The entire 16-member crew had signed it (except the captain, of course). The Coast Guard is part of the armed forces, so we were amazed that regular enlisted men would dare to make such a bold statement. We heard later that the Coast Guard crew were subsequently confined to quarters and docked pay. Our media reps immediately relayed the Coast Guard crew’s note to the wire services over our temperamental shortwave radio. That night, we made it onto “CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite,” then the number one television news program in the U.S.

Bingo. Greenpeace was on the map and we never looked back. A few people had proven they could reach millions and create a new awareness just by getting up and doing something creative.

Under orders, we retreated to the small fishing village of Sand Point in the Shumagin Islands, a couple of hundred miles back from where we had been apprehended. There played out one of the most intense personal encounters I have ever been party to. The debate that ensued forged lasting bonds and prejudices in all of us. The basic question was, Should we retreat with our tails between our legs or should we defy the Coast Guard and carry on to the test site via international waters? Well, that was the way the kamikazes put it. Some of us asked, Should we sail to certain death in winter storms or should we go home knowing we have succeeded in raising the issue? Bob Hunter led the death wish contingent, he really didn’t mind dying for the cause. Jim Bohlen, as the senior Don’t Make a Wave Committee member on board, who didn’t want to die just yet, preached caution. Captain Cormack somewhat sadistically let this argument play out for a few days before he made it clear no bunch of city boys was going to tell him where to take his boat. We headed home.