(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 chief delegate of the US government was Russell Train - chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality. In the general speeches by delegations, which started on June 6th, Train appealed to people to be interested in reciprocal interaction between mankind and the environment, then spoke about whales: "The USA cooperates in the protection of wild animals. Since the US delegation regards the moratorium of commercial whaling as one of the most important matters, we ask for your support." Since he also stated that the USA would donate $100 million - 40% of the total - for the environmental fund to be established after the Stockholm conference, his speech got a big hand.

Prior to the speech, Train had a meeting with the press in the afternoon of June 5th, and showed the contents of the speech in advance. In it, he emphasized two points: that the donation for the environmental fund had been publicly promised by President Richard Nixon, and that the Stockholm conference would give hard conclusion on the whaling moratorium.

It was during the night of the third day - June 7th - that "Save the whales!" was shouted by environmental organizations which had been outside the scene. Starting from the end of May, a camp village had been built by hippies and environmental groups in the Skarpnes grassland in a suburb of Stockholm. The number of activists gathered there was about three thousand. At the night rally on the Skarpnes grassland, W.J. Hickel (ex-Secretary of the Interior and a member of the US delegation) and, to our surprise, Maurice Strong - secretary general of the conference - were in attendence.

Hickel shouted: "Whales are a symbol of life and their extinction is an omen that other life will become extinct one after another." Then Strong took the microphone: "Whales are a symbol of wild animals becoming extinct. If we cannot save them, we cannot save mankind and the earth. Whether the whaling moratorium is adopted is the key to the success of this conference."

Apart from Hickel's speech, Strong's speech - the speech by the secretary general of the conference - which was given a headline on Swedish newspapers the next day (June 8th), gave grave doubts to the Japanese delegation. "Such behavior, that the secretary general of the conference made a speech to promote the whaling moratorium - an agenda item - before any official deliberation had started! Can such an action be allowed?" However, the question did not appear in any of the mass media, including the Japanese newspapers. To such an extent as that did the atmosphere in Stockholm take the protection of whales for granted.

In the morning of the same 8th of June, members of environmental groups, who had shouted "Save the whales!" during the previous night, started an anti-whaling demonstration march. On this day the whaling moratorium was going to be discussed in the second committee. Demonstrators started at the camp village in the Skarpnes grassland, and marched to the Royal Opera House - a conference site in center of Stockholm. In the front row of demonstrators, there was Ms. Joan McIntyre - chairman of Project Jonah.

Project Jonah is an organization that is an offshoot of Friends of the Earth which has strong supporters in the UK and USA, and was established in 1971 exclusively to be part of the anti-whaling movement. Having its headquarters in San Francisco, it was the most active organization promoting the anti-whaling campaign by such actions as directly appealing to President Nixon for a ban on whaling. At that time, McIntype was one of the leaders of the whale protection movement in the USA and visited Japan two years later in 1974 with some elementary school pupils to appeal "Please don't kill poor whales".

In the front row of demonstrators, there was also Russell Train - chief delegate of the US government. Then behind them, members of Hog Farm - a group living an agricultural communal life in California - holding a large papier-mache of a whale, three middle-sized buses with whales painted on them, and a small bus with a banner of "Moby Dick" in large type, followed and guided the march. Citizens of Stockholm also joined this demonstration march, and it became a large crowd and surrounded the conference site.

From the rally the previous night and the anti-whaling demonstration on this day, the Japanese delegation at last noticed the careful preparation of the anti-whaling movement which had infiltrated the conference.

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