Jim Bohlen, whose snap decision to sail to Amchitka Island, Alaska, to protest an underground nuclear test led to the creation of the environmental organization Greenpeace, died Monday in Comox, British Columbia. He was 84 and lived in Courtenay, British Columbia. The cause was complications of Parkinson’s disease, his daughter, Margot Bradley, said.
Mr. Bohlen was a founder of the Don’t Make a Wave Committee, a group of Sierra Club members determined to oppose nuclear testing at Amchitka Island in the Aleutians, which had begun in 1969.
With a test scheduled for fall 1971, little more than a year away, Mr. Bohlen complained to his wife, Marie, that the committee was deliberating too slowly.
As she offhandedly suggested that they sail a boat to the test site, a reporter for The Vancouver Sun called to check in on the committee’s deliberations. Mr. Bohlen, caught off guard, said, “We hope to sail a boat to Amchitka to confront the bomb,” a remark that appeared in the newspaper the next day.
The committee made good on Mr. Bohlen’s pledge. After Irving Stowe, a core member, organized a fund-raising concert in Vancouver with Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Phil Ochs and the Canadian rock band Chilliwack, the committee leased the halibut fishing vessel Phyllis Cormack, and, after renaming it Greenpeace, sailed to Alaska.
Although the boat was intercepted by the Coast Guard, public outcry caused a delay in the test. The program was later abandoned, and Amchitka Island was turned into a bird sanctuary.
Today Greenpeace is an international organization with more than three million members that carries out environmental campaigns through its offices in 40 countries.
No comments:
Post a Comment