(from "Kujira to Inbou" (Whales and Plots), by Yoshito Umezaki, 1986)

Note:
The words of conversations or statements which were made in English are not the exact wording as the original, because they were translated from Japanese texts in the book.

The meeting was something like a seminar for 'whale-loving' western people. J.D. Ovington (Australia) - chairman of the meeting, S.J. Holt (Seychelles) - chairman of the first part of the meeting, and L. Watson (Seychelles) - chairman of the second part of the meeting, were those who had promoted the holding of this Smithsonian meeting at the 1979 meeting of the IWC. Also it was a skillful maneuver to have an American, Dexter Cate, who was in a Japanese detention center for having cut a fishing net to free dolphins in Iki Island, send a letter "Petition on the Rights of Cetaceans" to the meeting.

"I felt strong antipathy to the attitude of anti-whaling people that their thoughts and behaviors were the common sense of all human beings. Therefore, I spoke as much as I liked. Even if their insistence seemed nonsense, they might be justified if we didn't counterargue. So I spoke without hesitation. However, on the last day of the first part of the meeting, I was surprised at the draft report written by Holt. Most of the opinions of the Japanese were not included. It was obvious that they intended to make the report turn out in a way convenient for them. We protested and made our opinions be included in the report. I realized that they had justified their thoughts in this way also at the IWC meetings."
- Ryu Kiyomiya

Kiyomiya - a commentator - attended the meeting as a representative of "Hogei-Mondai Kondankai" (gathering to discuss the whaling issue) formed by some intelligentsia, and looks back at the meeting as above.

Since no conclusion was made at the Smithsonian meeting, Seychelles proposed the holding of a second meeting at the 1980 meeting of the IWC. Seychelles expressed a wish to invite experts on ethics this time.

"When Watson proposed the holding of a second meeting, the USA and UK agreed to the proposal and it was about to be adopted by a vote. Before the vote, I questioned the delegates of those nations. "Your countries must be democratic or liberal. Do you agree to vote on ethics - a personal matter to be handled carefully? Isn't that the system as adopted in totalitarian countries? In Japan, ethics is a personal matter and belongs to a category in which the nation or organizations should not interfere. Isn't it the case that any nation should not impose its ethics on other nations?" No one responded to my statement and the silence lasted. Then a representative of the UK asked: "Secretary, how much expense will be needed for the meeting?" Ray Gambell - Secretary of the IWC - reported a figure of several tens of thousands of dollars. Then the representative of the UK stated "If it will cost so much, the UK doesn't agree to the holding of the meeting", and the USA followed. So, the holding of the second meeting was not adopted for a financial reason. To such an extent as not to notice the seriousness of banning the whaling for an ethical reason, the prejudice of the anti-whaling nations to the whaling nations is strong."
- Kunio Yonezawa

On the other hand, Watson, who proposed the holding of the meeting on the ethics of killing whales, seems to ignore the ethics with whales killed by the USA. In the 1982 meeting of the IWC, Spain proposed a moratorium on bowhead whaling by the Alaskan Eskimos. The reason was that the IWC Scientific Committee had classified bowhead whales as Protection Stock and had recommended zero catch limits. At the vote in the plenary session, Watson (Seychelles) strongly opposed: "No!". After all, the proposal was not adopted. It must be Watson's belief that killing the whales and eating them is against ethics. Is his thought that bowhead whales - one of the most depleted species - can be excluded from the target of ethics and can be taken, understandable for people of anti-whaling faith?

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