Hairy Adventure

To Siberia and back

The Rainbow Warrior is a tough old British trawler whose blunt bow has frequently poked into waters where it has not been welcome. It belongs to Greenpeace, an international environmental group that opposes whaling. Last week Greenpeace carried out its most daring protest yet. The ship narrowly escaped being captured, but seven Greenpeace members, six Americans and one Canadian, were detained by Soviet authorities.

The Greenpeace escapade was planned to coincide with the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Brighton, England. With U.S. support, the commission aims to ban commercial whaling completely by 1986. Greenpeace believed that the Soviets were violating the commission's recommendation that only native groups be allowed to hunt the California gray whale. With 23 men and women aboard, the Rainbow Warrior steamed across the Bering Strait to the Siberian whaling village of Lorino. Six Greenpeace members went ashore to hand out leaflets to workers at the whale-processing plant. Suddenly a contingent of Soviet soldiers arrived and arrested the six. A Greenpeace member who was still aboard the Rainbow Warrior grabbed film that other members had shot and jumped into a motorized rubber boat to rush it back to Alaska. But a Soviet helicopter swooped down and plucked him out of the boat.

Minutes later two Soviet ships appeared and gave chase. "Getting quite hairy," the crew radioed Greenpeace headquarters in San Francisco. "They're playing chicken with us." Only after the Rainbow Warrior was well into international waters did the Soviet ships turn back. U.S. and Canadian officials interceded on behalf of the seven, and at week's end, Moscow released the protesters. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.