Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 8. februar 2010 / Time Line February 8, 2010
Version 3.57. Februar 2010, 9. Februar 2010
02/08/2010
Preserving the Golden Rule as a Piece of Anti-Nuclear
History
By: Lawrence S.
Wittner
The Golden Rule is in danger. No, not the famed ethical code -
though proponents of selfishness certainly have ignored it - but a
thirty-foot sailing ship of the same name that rose to prominence
about half a century ago.
The remarkable story of the Golden Rule began in the late 1950s, as
the world public grew increasingly concerned about preparations for
nuclear war. In the United States, the National Committee for a
Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE) was launched in November 1957, and polls
showed rising uneasiness about the nuclear arms race - especially
giant atmospheric nuclear weapons tests that spewed radioactive
fallout around the globe.
Although SANE quickly became the largest peace organization in the
United States, smaller groups, committed to civil disobedience,
sprang up as well. One of them, Non-Violent Action Against Nuclear
Weapons, drew the participation of Albert Bigelow, a lieutenant
commander in the U.S. Navy during World War II. With the bombing of
Hiroshima, Bigelow had concluded that "morally, war is impossible,"
and a month before he became eligible for his pension, he resigned
from the U.S. Navy Reserve. Joining the Society of Friends, he
plunged into the growing campaign of resistance to nuclear
weapons.
In January 1958, Bigelow and three other pacifists wrote to
President Dwight Eisenhower of their plan to sail the Golden Rule
into the U.S. nuclear testing zone in the Pacific. "For years we
have spoken and written of the suicidal military preparations of
the Great Powers," they declared, "but our voices have been lost in
the massive effort of those responsible for preparing this country
for war. We mean to speak now with the weight of our whole lives."
They hoped their act would "say to others: Speak Now."
Of course, this was just what the U.S. government most feared.
Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, Atomic Energy Commission
(AEC) officials, and the U.S. Navy brass began frantic
conversations on how to counter the pacifist menace. The U.S.
commander-in-chief in the Pacific warned that this group of
"Communists or misguided humanitarians" hoped to either "stop tests
by preventing us from firing ... or if we did fire and killed a few
people" to "create additional anti-atomic test support."
Eventually, the administration decided to have the AEC issue a
regulation blocking entry by U.S. citizens into the test zone,
while U.S. intelligence agencies swapped data on Bigelow, including
information on his private telephone conversations and legal
plans.
Meanwhile, captained across a stormy Pacific by Bigelow, the Golden
Rule arrived in Honolulu, where a U.S. federal court issued an
injunction barring the rest of its voyage. Nevertheless, the four
pacifists decided: "We would sail - come what may." And they did.
Overtaken by the U.S. Coast Guard on their journey to Eniwetok,
they were arrested, tried, convicted, and placed on probation.
Undaunted, they set sail once more on the Golden Rule for the very
heart of darkness, that section of the Pacific unilaterally
cordoned off by the U.S. government for its hydrogen bomb tests.
Once again, their voyage was halted by U.S. authorities, and they
were arrested, tried, convicted and - this time - given sixty-day
sentences and imprisoned.
But their example proved
contagious. An American anthropologist, Earle Reynolds, his wife
Barbara, and their two children attended the final trial in
Honolulu, and concluded not only that the U.S. government was lying
about the dangers of radioactive fallout, but lacked the
constitutional authority to explode nuclear weapons in the Pacific.
As a result, determined to complete the voyage of the Golden Rule,
they set sail for Eniwetok aboard their own ship, the Phoenix. On
July 1, Reynolds went on the radio to announce that they had
entered the U.S. nuclear testing zone. Soon thereafter he was
arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to a two-year prison
term.
These events, which received considerable publicity, triggered a
surge of activism. Picket lines sprang up around federal buildings
and AEC offices all across the United States. In San Francisco, 432
residents - proclaiming that they were guilty of "conspiring" with
crew members - petitioned the U.S. attorney to take legal action
against them. Reynolds, out on bail before a higher court ruled in
his favor (and, implicitly, in favor of the crew of the Golden
Rule), gave a large number of talks on radio and television, as
well as to college, high school, and church audiences, on the
dangers of nuclear testing.
Not surprisingly, U.S. government officials were horrified.
Appearing on CBS television, AEC chair Lewis Strauss, implied - as
he often did when discussing critics of nuclear weapons - that the
whole thing was part of a Communist conspiracy. "At the bottom of
the disturbance there is a kernel of very intelligent, deliberate
propaganda," he insisted.
Subsequent events went badly from Strauss's standpoint. Within a
short time, he was ousted from office, and the Eisenhower
administration - barraged by public protests against nuclear
testing - felt obliged to halt it and begin negotiations on a test
ban treaty. In 1963, these negotiations culminated in the signing
of the Partial Test Ban Treaty, which ended atmospheric nuclear
tests by the great powers. SANE and other peace groups were
delighted with this first nuclear arms control treaty, as was
Bigelow, who only two years before had challenged authority once
more, this time as a Freedom Rider.
As for the aging Golden Rule, it has now drifted into obscurity,
and is currently housed in a small shipyard in Eureka California,
whose owner, Leroy Zerlang, would like to save it from destruction.
If the Smithsonian or another museum decided to preserve the ship,
it would provide a fine symbol to future generations of the
courageous men who sailed it, of government efforts to halt their
activities, and of a nation that ultimately turned against nuclear
weapons and nuclear war.
Dr. Wittner is Professor of History at the State University of New
York/Albany. His latest book is Confronting the Bomb: A Short
History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement (Stanford
University Press).
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