Steve Sawyer, 1956-2019

As referenced by earlier blog posts, the 1985 evacuation of Rongelap islanders radiated by the testing of American nuclear weapons was a key moment in Steve’s life. Perhaps this was one of the reasons why he was supportive of a series of Greenpeace nuclear disarmament campaigns, and opposition to war such the First Gulf War – the American led invasion of Kuwait and the bombing of Iraq in 1991 and the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia. But then for Steve the name Greenpeace was always programme. Peace and environment were equally important for him, peace with nature and peace among people was indivisible for him. In this belief he never waivered even when sometimes disarmament campaigns were not popular, especially in his native country.

Of course opposition to nuclear weapons testing was the founding campaign of Greenpeace in 1971, a campaign that continued until Greenpeace led global public opinion forced France’s Jacques Chirac to finally end testing in 1996.

In ’87, Steve was one of the key people in Greenpeace to launch the Nuclear Free Seas campaign to rid the oceans of naval nuclear weapons belonging to the US, Soviet Union, the UK, France and China. Steve overcame doubts and criticism to make sure that his US Greenpeace office was firmly behind the new campaign. What followed was a popular, action led, research backed, politically targeted, confrontational campaign against mainly American warships in city harbours across Europe, North America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. High seas actions against Russian warships took place in the Mediterranean, and the Baltic. By the time Steve had moved to Greenpeace International, the NFS campaign moved to take on the testing of the American Trident missile off the coast of Florida, stopping a test completely in July 1989, then suffering the most damage inflicted upon a Greenpeace vessel short of the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in a high profile clash in December 1989. And all the time, now from the helm of Greenpeace, Steve gave his full support for this work.
The nuclear testing campaign was re-invigorated with the Greenpeace activists over-running the Soviet nuclear test site on the Arctic islands of Novaya Zemlya in October 1990, and the American test site near Las Vegas in January 1991.

Later that month the United States unleashed a vicious attack against Iraqi forces in Kuwait, and against the Iraqi people by systemic bombing of civilian targets, knocking out the electricity system and paralyzing the country’s food supply. Retreating Iraqi forces deliberately set fire to Kuwati oil wells. Steve helped pull together 2 Greenpeace fact-finding missions, the first to assess the damage being wrought by the well fires, the second to assess the damage to the civilian population of Iraq by American air strikes. Greenpeace’s on-the-ground work in the Gulf and inside Iraq pioneered today’s common methods of assessing the civilian impact of warfare and the far-reaching effects that destruction of civilian infrastructure – such as electrical power – could have on humans and the environment.
Sawyer was very supportive of the research trip to Former Yugoslavia to assess the environmental impact of that war. Greenpeace was invited by the Croatians but needed to be neutral. Sawyer was a strong supporter of that mission even as it started to ‘creep’ and developed into a side trip to Serbia. It led to the development of the Greenpeace land mines and anti personal weapons campaign.

But wait, there’s more !!! After the fall of the Berlin Wall in ‘89 American, British, and Soviet battlefield nuclear weapons remained deployed outside of their respective national territories across Europe. Under Steve’s leadership Greenpeace launched the Euronukes campaign in 1991, to rid Europe of these dangerous relics of the Cold War. NATO headquarters in Brussels was blockaded, various nuclear military bases were over-run by Greenpeace activists and plastic nuclear “bombs” were Returned to Sender at the UK Aldermaston bomb factory. By far the most audacious was Operation Loose Cannon; an effort to take possession of a nuclear warhead in former East Germany from a disgruntled Soviet junior army officer over the summer of ’91 in return for safe page to Sweden. Steve was at the center of planning operation Loose Cannon, which unfortunately did not succeed because the breakup of the Soviet Union changed the security arrangements. Repatriation of those weapons happened almost immediately. Not only did Steve back this complicated operation, he actively participated in its planning, fully aware of the enormous risks for activists and the organisation.

It was as always thus with Steve. The organisation was more important than himself and the cause was more important than the organisation.

William (Bill) Arkin
Gerd Leipold
Steve Shallhorn
John Sprange

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