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In 1970, the Don't Make a Wave Committee was established; its sole
objective was to stop a second nuclear weapons test at Amchitka Island
in the Aleutians.
The committee's founders and first members included:
Jim Bohlen's son Paul, having trouble making the two words fit on a button, linked them together into the committee's new name: Greenpeace.
Marie Bohlen was the first to suggest taking a ship up to Amchitka to oppose the US plans. The group organised a boat, the Phyllis Cormack, and set sail to Amchitka to "bear witness" (a Quaker tradition of silent protest) to the nuclear test.
On board were:
Bob Hunter would take the lessons of that first voyage forward and improvise upon them to the point that he, more than anyone else, invented Greenpeace's brand of individual activism. View Bob Hunter image slideshow.
The Amchitka voyage established the group's name in Canada. Greenpeace's next journey spread their reputation across the world.
In 1972, David McTaggart answered an ad placed in a New Zealand newspaper by Ben Metcalfe, calling for a ship to go to Morouroa Atoll to protest nuclear weapons testing there.
McTaggart chose the following crew:
For the next two decades, McTaggart would vie with the French government over nuclear weapons testing at sea and in the courts, and rise to the leadership of Greenpeace worldwide. At a point when separatist Greenpeace national and regional entities were taking legal action against one another, the successful businessman and athlete stepped in and settled the arguments by founding Greenpeace International.
Sadly, David McTaggart died in a car crash in Italy 23 March 2001.
The committee's founders and first members included:
- Paul Cote, a law student at the University of British Columbia.
- Jim Bohlen, a former deep-sea diver and radar operator in the US Navy.
- Irving Stowe, a Quaker and Yale-educated lawyer.
- Bill Darnell, a social worker.
Jim Bohlen's son Paul, having trouble making the two words fit on a button, linked them together into the committee's new name: Greenpeace.
Marie Bohlen was the first to suggest taking a ship up to Amchitka to oppose the US plans. The group organised a boat, the Phyllis Cormack, and set sail to Amchitka to "bear witness" (a Quaker tradition of silent protest) to the nuclear test.
On board were:
- Captain John Cormack, the boat's owner
- Jim Bohlen, Greenpeace
- Bill Darnell, Greenpeace
- Patrick Moore, ecology student
- Dr Lyle Thurston, medical practitioner
- Dave Birmingham, engineer
- Terry Simmons, cultural geographer
- Richard Fineberg, political science teacher
- Robert Hunter, journalist
- Ben Metcalfe, journalist
- Bob Cummings, journalist
- Bob Keziere, photographer
Bob Hunter would take the lessons of that first voyage forward and improvise upon them to the point that he, more than anyone else, invented Greenpeace's brand of individual activism. View Bob Hunter image slideshow.
The Amchitka voyage established the group's name in Canada. Greenpeace's next journey spread their reputation across the world.
In 1972, David McTaggart answered an ad placed in a New Zealand newspaper by Ben Metcalfe, calling for a ship to go to Morouroa Atoll to protest nuclear weapons testing there.
McTaggart chose the following crew:
- Nigel Ingram, ex-Royal Navy
- Roger Haddleton, ex-Royal Navy
- Grant Davidson, a good cook
For the next two decades, McTaggart would vie with the French government over nuclear weapons testing at sea and in the courts, and rise to the leadership of Greenpeace worldwide. At a point when separatist Greenpeace national and regional entities were taking legal action against one another, the successful businessman and athlete stepped in and settled the arguments by founding Greenpeace International.
Sadly, David McTaggart died in a car crash in Italy 23 March 2001.
