by Ben Stewart
A march was organised from Selma to Montgomery, the state capital, to petition the avowedly racist governor George Wallace. The peaceful marchers were met by state troopers who beat them and rained canisters of tear gas onto the heads of the crowd.90 Two weeks later eight thousand people assembled at Brown Chapel in Selma and, led by Martin Luther King Jr., they set out again for Montgomery. By the time they arrived on the steps of the State Capitol building four days later,91 the crowd had swelled to twenty-five thousand.92 Among their number were Roger Willcox and his twelve-year-old son, Pete.
Dr King addressed the crowd:
We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience. That will be a day not of the white man, not of the black man. That will be the day of man as man. I know you are asking today, ‘How long will it take?’ I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because truth pressed to earth will rise again. How long? Not long, because no lie can live for ever. How long? Not long, because you still reap what you sow. How long? Not long. Because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.93
Pete later told the journalist Josh Eells that the march instilled in him ‘the notion that if you dedicate yourself to something outside your immediate sphere, it’s going to be a more fulfilling life’.94
Most American schoolchildren are sent to summer camp. When he was fourteen years old the parents of Pete Willcox sent him to the Soviet Union. It was 1967, the year before Pavel Litvinov sat down in Red Square to protest the invasion of Czechoslovakia. For Roger and Elsie the USSR didn’t hold the same demonic connotations that it did for most Americans. Pete spent several weeks touring the country, visiting a Russian school and eating austere Russian meals. He took a train from Moscow to Crimea, where he spent six weeks at Camp Artek, the famous retreat for the children of party members and international delegations (Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, was at the camp that summer95). Again and again Pete met Russians who yearned for peace, for better relations with America.
When he was nineteen years old he was drafted to fight in Vietnam. Soon afterwards he took a call from the wife of the folk singer Pete Seeger, a family friend. The Seegers had an offer to make. They owned a boat and used it to teach local children about pollution in the Hudson river. The first mate had recently been tried for draft evasion but had somehow persuaded the judge that the crew of the boat should be exempted from the military. If Pete wanted, he could join the crew and avoid Vietnam.96
Pete Willcox eventually became captain of Seeger’s boat. He dated the cook Maggy, it was love but it didn’t last. She married another guy, but they stayed in touch.
After six years of educating kids about one dirty river in one state, Pete was getting itchy feet. In 1981, at the age of twenty-eight, he answered an advert in a magazine for a job as a deckhand for Greenpeace. On day one, because he was a good painter, he was made the new first mate. Three months later he was captain. Six months after that he was sued for piracy for the first time after taking part in a direct action protest against toxic waste dumping off the New Jersey coast. Two years later came a second piracy charge, this time for boarding a Japanese whaling ship.97
Then in 1985, the French secret service bombed his ship, the Rainbow Warrior, and killed his friend, the photographer Fernando Pereira.
Two of the bombers – Captain Dominique Prieur and Commander Alain Mafart – were arrested by local police.98 Three other French agents were arrested by the Australian authorities but were released and picked up by a French submarine.99 Four months later Prieur and Mafart were sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment for manslaughter,100 but the French government threatened economic sanctions against New Zealand unless the agents were freed.101 A political deal was struck that saw the bombers held on a French Polynesian island, but after just two years they were released and returned to France, where Mafart was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel.102 It later transpired that President François Mitterrand knew about the plan to bomb the Rainbow Warrior before it was executed.103 The leader of the team that planted the bombs was reported to be Louis-Pierre Dillais. He later moved to the United States and settled in Virginia, where he still lives, running the American arm of a Belgian weapons manufacturer.104
Pete was devastated by Fernando’s death. He took a year out, sailed a bit, took time to reflect. Eventually he was ready to get back to campaigning. Soon he was being arrested in Denmark, then the Philippines. A movie came out, The Rainbow Warrior, in which Pete was played by Oscar-winner Jon Voight. Years passed. Greenpeace grew in size and scope. The job of captain changed.
‘When I started out, there was one campaigner on the boat, and half the time his job was to bring the recreational pharmaceuticals,’ Pete told Josh Eells from the magazine Men’s Journal. ‘Now there’s a campaigner, an assistant campaigner, a comms person, a second comms person, a webbie, photographer … I remember saying in the early eighties that we had to get as disciplined and organised as IBM or Exxon, or we weren’t going to matter. And in a lot of ways we did, and it sucks. I’m still glad we did it. But now you’re kind of just a cog in a wheel.’105
Pete met an Argentine doctor at sea, married her and had two kids, but the marriage didn’t last. Later he connected with his birth mother, then in 2010 he was visiting Maine to pick up a classic yacht for delivery when he met up with Maggy, the cook back on Pete Seeger’s boat forty years earlier. She was single now, so was he, and that thing between them was still there. Three years later they married. Seven months after that he sailed for the Arctic.
Pete Willcox’s diary
1st November
November! Made it! Good things are going to happen this month, but there are still alligators in the pool. So do not count your chickens yet! Got off to a slightly better exercise period. Two sides of the box were walkable. Then the day got a little weird. I got taken to a room up on the fourth floor which was some kind of meeting room. Two guys, one in a suit, one a plain shirt. They said they were from special services or something like that. The suit started to talk but the other guy was such a shitty translator, it was really hard to figure out what they were trying to say. They made the point that I was responsible for the crew being here. I did not like it, but agreed anyway. They then spent a long time saying if I made a statement things would be better, and we would go home. They asked me what I thought, and I said if that’s what they told me I would have to accept it. They did not whip out the paper and start questioning me. The interpreter was not up to it. But at the end I just agreed with them, saying I did not know anything that was going on, and if they said I would get out after making a statement, I would have to believe them. In the end they might have thought they convinced me. But if they think I am making a statement without my lawyer, they are smoking crack.
TWENTY-FOUR
Frank Hewetson’s diary
1st November
Just had a 20 minute phone call with Joe + Nina. It was really really lovely. So good to talk to them and hopefully reassured Joe of my well being. Nina pretty damn upset with Greenpeace and how they got it ‘so’ wrong. I tried to tell Nina that I always knew a prison sentence was coming my way but she is still very angry with them. She has done loads of really good interviews as well. Major radio + news etc. So proud of her. So proud. Things could get a bit ugly if I get a longer jail term here. I think Nina will start demanding a new lawyer + possibly criticise Greenpeace, which would be disastrous on an open forum. God I hope it’s over soon for that sake alone.
2nd November
Really strong dream last night. Boris was obviously making noise and rattling the steel bunk with the light on. I was confused and convinced it was Nina coming into our bedroom to go to sleep. Assuredly to do with the phone call and the sudden contact made with back home. It was really upsetting though, because for one second I felt so comfy and back at home in bed. Reality was a hard bite.
4th November
Boris’ snoring is getting really bad. Started dreaming of toe clip electrodes that would be linked to a decibel meter and apply an equal and appropriate level of electric shock compared with the sound level and resonance of the snoring.
The Investigative Committee is trying to split the Arctic 30.
If they can get some of the activists to give evidence saying who took an active role in the protest at the rig, they can focus the charges on just a few of them. It’s a strategy that could see some of them go free but ensure the rest are jailed for many years. And if the IC can get the thirty to turn on each other they’ll secure a propaganda triumph for the Kremlin, especially if one of the turncoats is from the famous Litvinov dynasty.
Three days after being freed from the punishment cell, Dima is shaken awake by a guard.
‘You, get up, you have a meeting.’
‘I do?’
‘Your lawyer’s here.’
Dima jumps to the ground, then he’s marched down the hall with the guard following just behind him. ‘Right left right left right left …’ They turn a corner and there, coming towards him, are the two guys from the FSB. The competent authorities. The fist clenches in Dima’s stomach. Gerbil breaks into a grin.
‘Hey, that’s Litvinov isn’t it?’
‘It is, it is,’ says his friend with the helmet haircut. ‘It’s our old friend Litvinov.’
‘Ah, but where’s he going? That’s the question.’
‘He’s going to see his lawyer.’
‘Oh is he?’
‘He is, he is. He’s got a meeting.’
‘Oooh, a meeting. Sounds important.’
‘But I think we should have a little chat with him first, don’t you?’
‘Yes, yes. I think we should. I think the lawyer’s going to have to wait a while.’
The guard tugs the back of Dima’s shirt, pulling him to a halt. Helmet-hair opens a door and holds out an arm. Dima looks at each of the men in turn then nods and steps through the open door. He’s in a small meeting room with a row of chairs facing a single seat across a table, on which sits a bowl of biscuits. It’s like the scene of a job interview with five people on the panel. The competent authorities follow him in and shut the door.
Helmet-hair sits down and invites Dima to take the seat opposite him. Gerbil doesn’t take a seat, instead he lowers his tiny, bony little arse onto the edge of the table then shuffles along, making himself more comfortable before leaning down and exploding in Dima’s face.
‘You fucking bitch! You know how many years you’re going to be here? You think you’re going to get out after two months? Oh my God, you’re going to be here for years! You understand that, right? Did you like the punishment cell? Oh, you didn’t? What, you thought because you’re a Litvinov that we can’t just make you disappear? Well you know what, you’re going to be spending a lot of time in that cell, my friend. What have you got to say to that?’
Dima flinches in the face of Gerbil’s onslaught, the knot in his stomach is as tight as it’s ever been, it’s generating a powerful anxious energy that’s running down his legs and up his spine, sucking the breath from his lungs and making his hands shake.
Helmet-hair picks a biscuit from the bowl and slides it between his thick lips, his eyes resting grimly on Dima’s face. Silence. Crumbs are dropping from his mouth and falling into the creases in his shirt. He swallows and reaches for another biscuit, bites a chunk out of it and with his mouth full he says, ‘You’re in our hands now, arsehole. Oh, you thought you had to commit a crime to go to the kartser? Buddy, you’ll be going to that place any time we want you there. So look, bitch, now’s when you start telling us what happened at that platform. No protocol, just you, us and the truth. And you’d better start telling us fucking soon.’
Dima coughs into his hand and takes a breath. ‘I’m under strictest orders from my lawyer and—’
Gerbil screws up his face and slaps the air in front of him. ‘I’m just so disgusted by this man, I’ve got no time for this bullshit. He had his chance but he just sealed his fate.’ He stands up and opens the door. The guard is still standing outside. ‘Get him out of here.’
Helmet-hair pushes the rest of the biscuit between his lips, slaps his hands together, stands up and walks out. Dima gulps. He stares at the empty chairs in front of him then looks up at the guard, who gives a long low whistle.
‘Boy, they don’t like you, do they?’
Dima is taken back to his cell. He lies on his bunk, staring at the ceiling, going over what just happened. He’s still shaken. The fist is like a rock in his belly. They’re out to get me, he thinks. There’s no doubt about it, not now. This is what they did to Dad.
Nearly half a century has passed since Pavel Litvinov sat down in Red Square in the certain knowledge that he would be punished with the full force of the Soviet state. But right now Dima’s thinking of an episode that happened a year before that. The time when his father wrote a letter to the editor of Izvestia, the leading Soviet state-controlled newspaper.
I consider it my duty to bring the following to the notice of public opinion. On 26 September 1967 I was summoned to the Committee of State Security to be interviewed by an official of the Committee named Gostev. During our talk another KGB official was present but did not give his name. Immediately the conversation was over, I wrote it down from memory, because I was convinced that it graphically revealed tendencies which should be given publicity and which cannot but cause alarm to progressive public opinion both in our country and throughout the world … I protest against behaviour of this sort on the part of the state security organs, behaviour which amounts to unconcealed blackmail. I ask you to publish this letter, so that in case I am arrested, public opinion will be informed about the circumstances leading up to this event.
In the letter Pavel gave his verbatim account of the interrogation, explaining how the KGB agent Gostev warned him not to report details of a recent dissident trial; how the officer accused the dissident of ‘hooliganism’ despite the fact that the man had merely read out a poem in Mayakovsky Square; how Pavel would himself face trial unless he stopped his political activism.
‘Pavel Mikhailovich, we don’t intend to have a discussion with you,’ Gostev had said. ‘We are simply warning you. Just imagine if the whole world were to learn that the grandson of the great diplomat Litvinov is engaged in conduct of this sort. Why, it would be a blot on his memory.’
‘Well I don’t think he would be against me,’ said Pavel. ‘May I go?’106
Izvestia refused to publish the letter, but it did appear in the International Herald Tribune. A year later Pavel was arrested, put on trial and sentenced to exile. And now, half a century on, 4,000 miles from Dima’s cell in Murmansk, the retired physics teacher is schooling himself in the system that once targeted him, the same system (for he believes nothing much has changed) that has captured his son.
‘It is the Soviet legal machine, so to speak,’ says Pavel. ‘So I started reading the Russian criminal code – for many years I didn’t do it – and the constitution and how it’s formulated and how to fight it, and I talked to lawyers and so on. It was important, because in spite of Russia being a totalitarian state they still have to make something by law, and we had to answer every legal step. Some people didn’t understand it, but I knew. Because they once did it to me.’
Izvestia, the newspaper he wrote to in 1967 seeking justice, is still in print and is playing a leading role in the propaganda war against his son – even speculating that Greenpeace volunteers may have been responsible for beating up a Russian diplomat in the Netherlands. But Izvestia is no longer owned by the Communist Party. Now it’s owned by Gazprom.107
Dima is standing in the doorway of his cell watching the guards lifting mattresses and looking under them, flicking through the pages of his books and peering inside jars. Then from behind him he h
ears a familiar voice.
‘Ah yes, Litvinov. Dimitri, how are you doing, my friend?’
Dima spins around. It’s Popov. He’s standing on his toes and looking into Dima’s cell.
‘They found anything?’
‘Nope.’
Popov nods, then almost absently he says, ‘So, you’ll be leaving us soon.’ He drops onto his heels and flashes a golden toothy smile.
Dima’s heart jumps. ‘We’re getting out?’
Popov sniffs. ‘No, no. They’re moving you.’
‘Moving us? Where?’
‘St Petersburg.’
‘St Petersburg?’
‘Yup.’
‘When?’
‘Couple of days maybe. For all I know tomorrow.’
‘Do you know why?’
‘Dimitri, please.’ Popov holds out his hands in a plea of false modesty. ‘They tell me nothing. You probably know more than I do.’
‘I don’t know anything.’
‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything. Silly me.’ The governor looks down at his shoes and chews his lip. ‘No, it’s all a mystery to me. If I was to guess I’d say you’re going to be the subject of a bit of special treatment. But then, I know nothing.’
The fist in Dima’s stomach clenches. ‘What does that mean, special treatment?’
‘It means just that. Special treatment.’
‘And … what, it’s just me moving? The others, are they coming too? To St Petersburg?’
‘I would imagine so, yes.’
‘But you don’t know for sure?’
Popov shrugs, pats Dima on the shoulder and waltzes off down the hallway, running a finger along the wall as he goes.
As soon as the lights are killed and the doroga is up and running, Dima gets the news out. Phil’s cellmate pulls in the sock and hands him a note. (See opposite.)
The road buzzes with the news, it’s shouted over the walls at the gulyat, it’s all anyone talks about.
‘It’s today.’
‘I heard it was next week.’