Stopped
French Nuclear tests
in the South Pacific
The threat
Greenpeace in action
Although the UK, the US and the USSR had all signed the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963, agreeing to conduct future nuclear testing underground, France and China refused. France continued its atmospheric nuclear weapons testing at Moruroa Atoll in French Polynesia. The task of halting this would fall to Greenpeace, and the organisation began a quest to find somebody able to sail to Moruroa to protest against the tests.
A newspaper article about Greenpeace’s ambition came to the attention of one David McTaggart, a former Canadian businessman and expert yachtsman. McTaggart was living in New Zealand at the time, and he owned a strong, seaworthy 12 metre ketch, the Vega, capable of crossing any of the world’s oceans. He contacted Ben Metcalfe in Vancouver to ask if Greenpeace could help to pay for a new inflatable life raft and a long-range radio transceiver; Greenpeace was delighted to oblige. McTaggart renamed his yacht ‘Greenpeace III’ for the occasion and set sail. He observed international law in establishing his anchor position, but ignored the French government’s unilateral declaration of the area around Moruroa as a forbidden zone. The presence of his boat forced the French government to halt its test – a French naval vessel eventually rammed the boat to bring an end to what was, for the French, an embarrassing situation.
24 THE GREENPEACE chronicles