Don't Make a Wave Committee

The Don't Make a Wave Committee was the name of the anti-nuclear organization which later evolved into Greenpeace, a global environmental organization. The Don't Make a Wave Committee was founded in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada to protest and attempt to halt further underground nuclear testing by the United States in the National Wildlife refuge at Amchitka in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. The Don't Make a Wave Committee was first formed in October 1969 and officially established in early 1970.

In the late 1960s, the U.S had plans for an underground nuclear weapon test in the island of Amchitka at Alaska. Because of the 1964 Alaska earthquake the plans raised some concerns of the test triggering earthquakes and causing a tsunami. A 1969 demonstration of 7,000 people blocked a major U.S.-Canada border crossing in British Columbia, carrying signs reading "Don't Make A Wave. It's Your Fault If Our Fault Goes". Further demonstrations occurred at U.S. border crossings in Ontario and Quebec. The protests did not stop the U.S. from detonating the bomb.

While no earthquake nor tsunami followed the test, the opposition grew when the U.S. announced they would detonate a bomb five times more powerful than the first one. Among the opposers were Jim Bohlen, a veteran who had served the U.S. Navy during the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, a Quaker couple. As members of the Sierra Club they were frustrated in the lack of action by the organization.

In October 1969, Bohlen and the Stowes started meeting at a church basement, calling themselves the Don't Make a Wave Committee and planning anti-nuclear protests. From Irving Stowe, Bohlen learned a form of passive resistance, "bearing witness", where objectionable activity is protested by mere presence. Jim Bohlen's wife Marie came up with the idea to sail to Amchitka, inspired by the anti-nuclear voyages of Albert Bigelow in 1958. The idea ended up in the press and was linked to The Sierra Club. The Sierra Club did not like this connection and in 1970 Jim and Marie Bohlen, Irving and Dorothy Stowe and Paul Cote, a law student and peace activist established The Don't Make a Wave Committee, working independently of The Sierra Club. Early meetings were held in the Shaughnessy home of Robert and Bobbi Hunter. The first office was opened in a back-room of a storefront off Broadway on Cypress, in Kitsilano, Vancouver.

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