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

In 1971, a major US oil manufacturing company, Sun Oil of Pennsylvania, developed a new lubricant which had almost the same quality as sperm oil. Then, Sun Oil began to actively support anti-whaling movements.

The reason was that since this new product had high development costs, the retail price had to be three times higher than that of sperm oil, and therefore it was necessary to banish sperm oil from the market. Two Congressmen - John Dingell and Hugh Scott - worked for the interests of Sun Oil. At that time, Scott was in the position of floor leader of the Republican Party.

To begin with, they worked to establish CITES (Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), and the convention came into effect in 1973. Because of their work, the original draft of the convention contained fin, sei, and sperm whales as well as blue, humpback, right, bowhead, and gray whales as being threatened with extinction. Since Japan opposed including fin, sei and sperm whales because they were not threatened with extinction, they were excluded from the list. However in 1976, they were nevertheless added to the list of endangered species.

Dingell and Scott then tried to introduce a new domestic law to ban the import of cars which used sperm oil as a lubricant. At that time, almost all Japanese cars used sperm oil as a lubricant for transmission bearings. This bill represented the interests of not only Sun Oil but also some of car manufacturers. But the bill did not pass through Congress. It was obvious that development of a new lubricant - as a replacement for sperm oil - by Sun Oil played a role in the anti-whaling policies in the US.

Sperm oil not only works as the best quality lubricant, but also does not freeze down to minus thirty degrees. Both the USA and the Soviets used it for missiles and space ships, and huge amounts of oil were in stock in preparation for possible future war in Siberia. When the US government enacted the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1971, and banned its own whaling, and also banned imports of whale products, the Japanese defense policy people wondered how the US would supply sperm oil. But the problem had already been solved for the USA through the development of a new lubricant by Sun Oil, as well as a huge stock of sperm oil.

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