personal

AS GREENPEACE’S g global
clout continues to mush-
‘Tooni, seerningly by’ the

~ month, J find m yself getting .

“calls from radio and newspa-—

per reporters in countries:

» like Australia, the U.K.
Germany, Hoiland, the U.S.
— of course — and, lo and
behold, even Canadian

os media organizations. :

~ Talways make it clear Lamia:
retired Greenpeacer, speaking only
“for myself, having rebuilt my life

': after flaming out many years ago.

Tam not — repeat NOT — in
any way.a spokesman for. ~
Greenpeace. Greenpeace is quite’
grown up nowadays, as you may

“ have noticed, and is ‘perfectly capa-
ble of mouthing its own party line. °°

.. -; Since the day’a couple of years
ago when David McTaggart ceased
to be executive-director of”
Greenpeace International, no.
‘Canadian has had any kind of a,
.,, controlling hand on the jolly green
“eco-beast we started in Vancouver a
quarter of a’century ago. -
. » An old column of mine (from
a 1972) was.quoted in The Vancouver
* Sun recently, wherein I’ wrote that.
‘Greenpeace had been started by”
“less people than i it takes to fill a
Volkswagen van.)
Well... Did I exaggerate? I. i
.» guess it depends on where you:
Estarte op. .
7 Originally, there’ was Jim :
Bohlen and Irving Stowe, both of

‘whom were American expatriates.”

on the run because their sons had”
become eligible for the draft"
-: | The only. Canadian involved in
=>, the original triumvirate was Paul
.s Cote, the quintessential * “quiet

: * Canadian." :

~ Bohlen, Stowe and Cote ‘called

: ‘themselves ‘The Don’t Make A ’
a Wave Committee, My. initial foot= >
““note-to-history role is that | was the ,
» guy who made. up the picket sign
saying DON’ T. MAKE, A WAVE”

for the first and-Amchitke demonstr-
tion outside the U.S, Consulate-

. General's office in Vancouver in 1970, °

The meeting of the founders of
The Don't Make A Wave
Committee happened < couple of
weeks later, After the announce-
ment of Marie Bohlen’s plan to
send a boat to Amchitka to “park
next to the bomb," the mectings got
bigger, quickly overflowing Ben

Metcalfe’s living room.

Miero-history buffs will be
pleased to learn that Greenpeace’s
first-ever shore-based communica-
tions centre was Ben and Dorothy
Metcalfe’s place-in West Van,

“where a tape recorder had been

hooked up to catch messages over

the radiophone from the boat,
Seventy to 80 people were liable

to show up in the Weeks just prior

‘tothe launching of the Pryllis

Cormack, rechristened Greenpeace,
in September 1971.

“Alter we got back trom that
convoluted trip, the meetings took
another jump, what with everybody

* (including Doug Collins) coming

around who had been on the second

ship, ‘Greenpeace Too.

Now a meeting might draw 150

. passionate antinukers, anti-

Vietnamers, Trotskyites, good clean
real estate agents, little old ladies in
running shoes, concerned Liberals,
Quakers, clerics and hippies.

There had been a problem with.’

The Don’t Make A Wave a

Commitiee. Irving Stowe, by pro-
fession a lawyer, tended to be.”
slightly to the Left of Chairman
Mao, one of his heroes, 4 ©
On what (I recall) was’ my sug-
gestion, rather than fold’The Don't
Make A Wave Committee after the
Amchitka campaign; : Bohlen and
Cote voted 2-1 to,create | the
Greenpeace Foundation in its place,

“stripping Stowe of a platform.

They named Ben Metcalfe as
the first chairman. It was Ben who
“unilaterally” started Greenpeace's
anti-Mururoa campaign, which is
still making headlines around the

~ world, all these years later.

After two expensive, bruising

~ campaigns against French nuclear
testing, Greenpeace in Vancouver
was essentially a spent force.

- It was then that I, along with
Rod Marining. Paul Spong and the
woman who was to become my

wife, Bobbi, quietly asked Ben to -
* Step aside,

We set up the Stop Ahab

Commitice, which became a reju-
venated Greenpeace's first foray: .-,

against the whalers, in 1975. [ was
campaign coordinator,

After that adventure attracted
world attention. we set-up a proper
organizational body under the B.C.

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dee “(Ask about Seniors’ Discounts). -
“Serving. the North Shore ‘for 24 years

know we loscthe anarchists

Societies Act. It had a president’
and chairman of the board: me.”

Some say that’s when we went
wrong, giving ourselves titles. i
and
Trotskyites. | was called a fascist,
can you imagine?

The next big turning-point, real-
ly, was When we created
Greenpeace International in West
Van lawyer Davie Gibbons*
Gastown office in 1978.

{In between. there was a lot of
blood and spleen spilt over the
boardroom table. Who knows haw
to meusure yet how much power
we really had in those days?

It was cnough, at any rate, to
drive us alla litle crazy — your
loyal correspondent almost as much
so as anyone. Afterwards was when
the explosion happened, literally
and physically. The bambing of the
Rainbow Warrior \0 years ago

allowed Greenpeace to take off into

global consciousness, und become
part of the history of the world, not
Just the history of Vancouver.

Keep in mind, though, where it
started. This is still a West Coast
thing, folks, just notched up to a
planctary level. That's al], Wait
until it goes interplanetary. You
laugh now.

Hair Brust es
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