“This is Campbell Plowden, Whale Campaign Coordinator for
Greenpeace. I’d like to let you know that the Soviet Union is going to
send two icebreakers to help clear a path for the whales trapped in
Alaska.”
24 years ago Greenpeace found itself caught up in the midst
of a Cold War drama, as the American and Soviet governments came
together to rescue three gray whales trapped in the sea ice off the
Alaskan coast. The amazing story has been transformed into the feature
film ‘Big Miracle’ by Universal Studios, starring Drew Barrymore as a Greenpeace activist.
To get the inside story on what really happened we got in touch with
Campbell Plowden, who, in 1988 was head of the Greenpeace USA Whales
Campaign. In a fascinating extended account, Campbell, now working to protect the Amazon with Amazon Ecology
describes one of the craziest weeks in his 14 years with Greenpeace,
and puts the Alaskan drama in the context of a wider campaign to end
Icelandic whaling.
“I realized on the spot that we had no choice about whether or
not we wanted to accept this incident as a natural event or ignore it as
a distraction. Dealing with it had just become our mandate; I had to
give it my best shot and try to use the opportunity to also save a lot
more whales around Iceland.”
While the movie focuses on Barrow Alaska, Campbell's account takes us
behind the scenes. He describes how Greenpeace engaged the Soviet
Union, and how we pressured the Reagan Administration to put the health
of the whales ahead of national politics.
“President Reagan was not known for his love for the Soviet
Union, and the idea of asking this Communist giant to send one or more
of their ships into U.S. waters to help save whales seemed absurd. ” ... “Greenpeace, however, had its own channel into the Evil Empire”
The rescue ended up requiring the combined efforts of the Alaskan
National Guard and Coast Guard, the Inuit community in Barrow Alaska,
Greenpeace, oil company Veeco, the Reagan Administration and the Soviet
Union.
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