Volume 8 | Issue 8 | Number 3 | Article ID 3308 | Feb 22, 2010 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus The Long Voyage: The Golden Rule and Resistance to Nuclear Testing in Asia and the Pacific 長い航海−−ゴールデン・ルール号 とアジア太平洋地域における核実験反対運動 Lawrence S. Wittner The Long Voyage: The Golden Rule and Resistance to Nuclear Testing in Asia and the Pacific Lawrence S. Wittner Recently, when a battered, 30-foot sailboat, the Golden Rule, came to rest in a small shipyard in northern California, the event did not inspire fanfare. But, in fact, the Golden Rule was far Hiroshima Maidens more important than it appeared, for the small ketch had helped inspire a widespread struggle Other people, too, were growing restless with against nuclear testing, particularly throughout the escalating preparations of the great powers the Asia-Pacific region. for nuclear war, and especially with nuclear tests, which sent vast clouds of radioactive The long voyage of theGolden Rule began fallout scudding around the globe. In 1954, the thanks to the efforts of Albert Bigelow, a irradiation of a Japanese fishing boat, the retired World War II U.S. naval commander. Lucky Dragon #5, by a U.S. hydrogen bomb Learning of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, test in the Pacific led to a furor in Japan and Bigelow had been not only awestruck, but the formation of a mass ban-the-bomb horrified. "It was then," he recalled, "that I movement, Gensuikyo (the Japan Council realized for the first time that morally war is Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs). In impossible." In the postwar years, Bigelow and 1957, Britons founded the National Council for his wife joined the Society of Friends and, in the Abolition of Nuclear Weapon Tests, which 1955, housed two of the 25 Hiroshima Maidens, the following year was folded into an even who had been brought to the United States for larger organization, the Campaign for Nuclear reconstructive surgery. Working with the Disarmament. In the fall of 1957, activists in American Friends Service Committee, Bigelow the United States launched the National sought to deliver a petition against nuclear Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE) testing to the White House, but was rebuffed by that, like its overseas counterparts, quickly U.S. government officials. grew into the largest peace and disarmament organization in the country. As part of this uprising, Bigelow and other pacifists, in late 1957, organized a small group, 1 8 | 8 | 3 APJ | JF Non-Violent Action Against Nuclear Weapons, government to block entry by its citizens. to employ direct action in the struggle against the Bomb. After the announcement of U.S. government plans to set off nuclear bomb blasts near Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands -- an island chain governed by the United States as a "trust territory" for the native people -- the moment of truth had arrived. Bigelow and other pacifists decided to sail a vessel of protest, the Golden Rule, into the testing zone. Explaining their decision, Bigelow declared: "All nuclear explosions are monstrous, evil, unworthy of human beings." In January 1958, Bigelow and three other crew members wrote to President Dwight Eisenhower of their plans. "For years we have spoken and written of the suicidal military preparations of the Great Powers," they observed, "but our voices have been lost in the massive effort of those responsible for preparing this country for war. We mean now to speak with the weight of our whole lives." Although the Boston Herald thought the crew The Golden Rule members "Thoreauesque," the U.S. government's response was considerably more In this context, Bigelow and his crew faced hostile. As theGolden Rule, captained by formidable obstacles. After the arrival of the Bigelow, made its way across the Pacific, Golden Rule in Honolulu, a U.S. federal court anxious officials from the State Department, issued an injunction barring continuation of its the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), and the journey to Eniwetok. Despite the legal U.S. Navy conferred on how to counter the ramifications of disobeying the injunction, the pacifist danger. The U.S. commander-in-chief pacifists decided: "We would sail -- come what in the Pacific warned that this group of may." And they did. Overtaken en route, they "Communists or misguided humanitarians" were arrested, brought back to Honolulu, tried, wanted to "stop tests by preventing us from convicted, and placed on probation. But these firing . or if we did fire and killed a few were men with a mission, and not easily people . create additional anti-atomic test deterred by the awesome power of the U.S. support." Secretary of State John Foster Dulles government. Defying the terms of their worried that cordoning off a large area on the probation, they set sail once again on the high seas would "have serious international Golden Rule. And once again they were repercussions," while too lenient a policy arrested on the high seas, returned to Hawaii, toward protesters might open the way to tried, and -- this time -- imprisoned with sixty- participation by Japanese antinuclear groups. day sentences. Ultimately, the administration decided to have the AEC issue a ban on entry to the test zone Even so, the U.S. government was beginning to by Americans and to pressure the Japanese lose control of the situation. Among those who 2 8 | 8 | 3 APJ | JF met the crew members of the Golden Rule in the voyage of the Golden Rule and lauded its Honolulu and attended their trial for contempt activities and those of thePhoenix in his of court were Earle and Barbara Reynolds, a magazine, the Saturday Review. married couple, and their two children. Traveling around the globe on their hand-built No longer able to hold the line against public sailboat, the Phoenix, they were heading back opposition to nuclear testing, the nuclear to Hiroshima, where Earle Reynolds, an powers began a reluctant retreat. In late anthropologist, had coordinated research for August 1958, Eisenhower announced that, as of the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission,October 31, the United States would suspend established by the U.S. government to gather its nuclear tests and would join other nuclear data on the effects of the atomic bombs. powers in negotiations for a nuclear test ban Greatly impressed by the crew members, as treaty. Although these negotiations dragged on well as convinced that the U.S. government had for years, the U.S., Soviet, and British misreported the deadly effects of radioactive governments did halt their nuclear tests. Their fallout and had no right to restrict travel on the testing moratorium collapsed in the fall of high seas, the Reynolds family decided to 1961, when the Soviet government led the way complete the voyage of the Golden Rule. On by resuming nuclear tests. But popular protest July 1, 1958, Earle Reynolds went on the radio resumed and, in the summer of 1963, resulted to announce that the Phoenix was entering the in the signing of the Partial Test Ban Treaty, U.S. test zone "as a protest against nuclear banning nuclear tests in the atmosphere. testing. Please inform appropriate authorities." The U.S. Coast Guard boarded the Phoenix the Even as the nuclear powers began to back next day, arrested Reynolds, and returned him away from nuclear testing, the influence of the to Hawaii for trial. Here he was convicted and Golden Rule persisted. In November 1958, the sentenced to two years in prison. crews of the Golden Rule and of the Phoenix traveled to Geneva to urge U.S., British, and These dramatic events heightened popular Soviet negotiators to sign a comprehensive test protest against nuclear testing. Picket lines ban treaty. Although Bigelow wrote a book sprang up around federal buildings and AEC about his protest in the Pacific (The Voyage of offices all across the United States, including the Golden Rule, 1959) and participated in those in Boston, Chicago, New York, Los further antinuclear protests, his most famous Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and subsequent venture occurred as one of the first Washington. Signs declared: "Stop the tests, Freedom Riders, when -- once again defying the not the Golden Rule." Reynolds, out on bail authorities by traveling into forbidden territory before a higher federal court ruled in his favor - -- he boarded a bus to the Deep South with - and, implicitly, in favor of his predecessors -- other challengers to racial segregation. Along embarked on a speaking tour that included 58 the way, he managed to block a white racist major talks, 20 other meetings, 21 radio assault on young John Lewis (today a member programs, and eight television appearances. of the U.S. House of Representatives) by SANE dispatched telegrams to political leaders absorbing the blows himself. Later on the trip, declaring that it joined the Golden Rule's crew Bigelow narrowly survived a firebombing of the members "in protesting against [the] unrightful bus by a racist mob outside Anniston, Alabama. use of [the] Pacific Ocean for nuclear weapons Jim Peck, another pacifist crew member of the testing, and against [the] Atomic Energy Golden Rule, also became a Freedom Rider and Commission's exercise of authority which it was severely injured by white racists. Like does not rightfully possess." Norman Cousins, Bigelow, Peck continued his antinuclear SANE's founder and co-chair, helped finance activities, in his case as a staff member of the 3 8 | 8 | 3 APJ | JF War Resisters League. to the dismay of the Soviet authorities, some crew members began to sink the vessel in the For their part, the Reynolds family returned to harbor while others grabbed leaflets and Japan. As a result of the notoriety Earle leaped into the near-freezing water in an Reynolds had attained thanks to his protest attempt to swim ashore.