War of the Whales (41 page)

After the Cold War ended with the Soviet Union’s dissolution in 1991, the Marine Mammal Program was among the first American military projects to be downsized.
⁶
The Navy donated its Kaneohe Bay station to the University of Hawaii—on condition that its research team could continue its dolphin work as university faculty—and moved the remainder of its “advanced biologicals” to its facility in Point Loma, California, for ongoing training and research under the direction of Sam Ridgway.

The Navy dolphins would not be called up for active duty again until the outbreak of the second Gulf War. When the Navy deployed its Autonomous Underwater Vehicles for mine-clearing operations, the AUVs worked only where the sea floor was sandy and flat. In more complex environments, they proved unreliable. Without a fully functional dolphin drone, and with new underwater enemies to combat, the Navy turned once again to its porpoise pool for help.

21

Mr. Balcomb Goes to Washington

Things had been tense between Diane and Ken during the week since he’ d returned from Smugglers Cove. She was clearly upset that he’ d decided to talk to
60 Minutes
and appear at the DC press conference without consulting her. It never seemed to occur to him, she noted, that his decisions affected both of their lives, and both of their careers. She was plenty angry about the way the US Navy operated in the Bahamas, but the risk of calling them out in public was greater for her, since she was just getting started in her research career. Balcomb always talked about how they were equal partners, but then had taken it upon himself to torpedo any chance that either of them would ever get research money from ONR. He may have invited
60 Minutes
to their research station and agreed to hand over their videotape, but she had no intention of appearing on camera for an interview.

The night before the
60 Minutes
crew arrived, Balcomb stayed up late reviewing the videotape from the stranding and its aftermath. He indexed each tape by time, date, and location, including the footage of the destroyer in the channel, Darlene Ketten’s beachside necropsy, and the late-night CT scanning up in Boston. After all the years he’ d spent behind the camera photographing and videotaping whales, it was eerie to see himself on-screen, wading out into the shallows to examine the stranded whales. Stranger still were the video images of deep-diving beaked whales lolling in three-foot surf and lying inert on beaches.

Balcomb drove up to Marsh Harbour Airport to meet the TV crew. First off the plane were producer Mary Walsh and on-camera correspondent David Martin, who together covered the Pentagon beat for
60 Minutes
. On the drive to Sandy Point, Walsh laid out her “Navy versus the whales” angle. She wanted to interview Balcomb and shoot some “B-roll” footage of the local scene for color. But as Ben White had predicted, what she seemed most focused on was the video footage of the stranding and its aftermath. Talking heads were necessary filler for any segment, and it was Martin’s job to elicit something quotable from his interview subjects. But the emotional hook, line and sinker for this story had always been the images of whales on the beach, and the volunteers fighting valiantly to rescue them.

Dave Martin wanted to interview Balcomb where the first whale had stranded in front of the house. Martin stood on the beach in pressed chinos and an expensive-looking but tasteful polo shirt. Balcomb wore a faded Earthwatch T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops. He declined the producer’s offer of makeup. While the sound engineer hooked up and tested Balcomb’s lapel mike, Ken tried to pretend that he’ d be having a one-on-one conversation with Martin. He wished that Walsh hadn’t already told him that every Sunday night, 17 million Americans tuned in to the loudly ticking stopwatch on
60 Minutes
.

Martin began his interview by introducing Balcomb as “a marine biologist who worked for seven years for the Navy tracking submarines.” Balcomb had agreed to this intro in advance. Under the circumstances, it seemed relevant. After 25 years of silence, the
60 Minutes
broadcast would mark his first disclosure, public or private, of the secret sound surveillance he’ d conducted for the Navy. The funny thing, he realized, was that Diane had made a point of going grocery shopping during the interview, so she still didn’t know what he’ d done during the Cold War.

Balcomb quietly and methodically narrated the series of whale strandings on March 15, the daylong rescue efforts, and the next day’s rush to collect fresh specimens. He held up a photograph of the destroyer they’ d seen in the canyon late the second day. Martin leaned in to ask the question he’ d come to the Bahamas to ask:

“Do you think the Navy is responsible for the strandings?”

Balcomb wasn’t surprised by the question. He’ d seen the segment title, “Who Killed the Whales?” taped across the clapsticks during the sound check. If he rendered a verdict publicly, before Ketten published her findings, he knew the Navy would go after him with a vengeance. Diane was right to worry about being caught in the cross fire.

Martin waited in silence for Balcomb’s response. The cameraman zoomed in for the trademark
60 Minutes
close-up of the whistle-blower’s moment of truth.

“I believe the Navy did it,” Balcomb answered.

Balcomb loved to fly, but he hated flying into cities. The air, the traffic, and the noise were all toxic to him. It had been 34 years since he’ d last visited Washington, DC. In the summer of 1966, he’ d landed a six-week job at the Smithsonian between his bird-banding trip and his induction into the Navy. Back then the only air-conditioning was in movie theaters and supermarkets. There was no subway yet, and Reagan National was simply called National Airport. But he suspected that one thing hadn’t changed: the strong stink of politics that hung over the city.

Although he preferred to travel light, Balcomb hauled a large suitcase and a duffel bag out of the terminal, both of them filled with videotape cassettes and an editing deck. He clambered aboard the subway for the ride to Silver Spring, where he had an appointment with the Office of Protected Resources at Fisheries headquarters. He’ d offered to preview the tape he was planning to screen at the press conference the next day, in hopes that he might preserve enough goodwill to retain a role in the investigation.

Those hopes were dashed as soon as he walked into the conference room. Not one of the ten people seated around the conference table rose to greet him. The only friendly face he knew at headquarters, Roger Gentry, had pointedly left the building for another meeting.

While Balcomb screened his video, the suits around the table watched in silence. When it ended, he asked if there was anything they objected to his sharing with the press. Someone muttered, “All of it.” No one laughed. The head of the division asked him to delete some slides ONR had published in its preliminary Environmental Impact Statement for Low Frequency Active sonar. Balcomb agreed to make the cut. Then he nodded to the stony faces around the table and left.

He took the subway to a Motel 6 out on Route 1 that he’ d booked online from Abaco. Even by Balcomb’s Spartan standards, it was a dump. He ate dinner next door at the Pizza Hut and spent the evening deleting ONR slides from each of the dozen videotape copies he’ d brought with him. Before going to bed, he tried on the clothes he’ d brought for the press conference: a brown blazer he purchased to wear at his brother’s wedding six years earlier and a white collared shirt that some Earthling had left behind in Abaco. His khaki pants had a pizza stain that he rubbed clean with a damp towel. Looking at himself in the bathroom mirror, Balcomb saw a heavily bearded castaway stuffed inside a too-tight sport jacket. He should have gotten a haircut, he realized. Diane always cut his hair, and it was too late to look for a barbershop. He borrowed a pair of scissors from the girl at the front desk and trimmed his beard over the bathroom sink, wondering to himself when it had gone so gray.

Balcomb squinted into the television lights. His mouth was dry, and his head ached. He poured himself another glass of water from the pitcher in front of him on the table, and gulped it down.

He scanned the audience, looking for a friendly face. Finally, he caught sight of Ben White crouched behind a video camera in the center aisle. Ben looked up from the eyepiece long enough to smile and wave at him with a broad sweep of his hand. That put Balcomb at ease for a minute, until he spotted a contingent from his Fisheries meeting. They all seemed to be glaring at him. When he recognized Roger Gentry sitting with them, dressed in a suit and tie with his arms crossed, Balcomb avoided making eye contact.

Joel Reynolds stepped to the podium and welcomed the assembled reporters. He introduced Balcomb and the other panelists seated on the raised dais: Naomi Rose from the Humane Society, Marsha Green of the Ocean Mammal Institute, and Chuck Bernard, a retired director of several Navy defense labs whom Reynolds had invited to critique Low Frequency Active sonar from an engineering perspective.

Balcomb had met Reynolds for the first time just a few minutes earlier. He impressed Balcomb as very comfortable in his skin; someone who felt at home in any room talking to any audience, including this assembly of reporters and cameramen. Reynolds had a beard, but unlike Balcomb’s, his was trim and professorial. His suit wasn’t flashy, but his red tie was smartly knotted, and he spoke without a script in clear, declarative sound bites:

“We’re here today to call for an end to the indiscriminate and illegal testing and deployment of intensive long-range sonar that threatens our oceans and everything in them. We’re particularly concerned with the growing use of active sonar that depends on generating extraordinarily intense noise over vast expanses of ocean, without regard to its effects on marine life and the integrity of the oceans—and most importantly, without legally required permits and environmental review mandated by federal law.”

As he watched the journalists jotting notes, Balcomb worried that he should have rehearsed his own remarks. Too late for that now. He glanced at the all-caps phrases he’ d scribbled down the night before on the Motel 6 pad he’ d found on the night table. Then he stuffed them back in his jacket pocket.

“We’re calling for full review and investigation of the Bahamas incident by Fisheries,” Reynolds continued. “And we’re calling for congressional oversight hearings to review these sonar systems and their environmental impact. Now, I’m going to turn the podium over to Ken Balcomb, a marine biologist and seven-year Navy veteran, who will tell us what he witnessed in the Bahamas.”

Balcomb took a final gulp of water, and then stepped up to the lectern to begin his narration of what he described as “the most unusual event of my life.” He switched on the videotape deck and glanced back at the screen to make sure it was projecting properly. At first he was disoriented to see the enlarged images of himself in shorts and T-shirt wading out to the first Cuvier’s that had run aground at Sandy Point. He watched along with the audience as the beaked whale repeatedly circled back toward shore each time it had been guided out to deeper water. “This whale was not hit by a ship or a propeller,” he began. “He was hit by a pressure wave of sound.”

In a subdued but clear voice, Balcomb detailed the strandings, the rescues, and the necropsies. It helped to look at the screen behind him while he spoke, instead of at the reporters and the Fisheries staff sitting out beyond the TV lights. It took his mind off the dryness of his mouth and the strangeness of hearing his voice echoing through the speakers. When he’ d ended his narration, he paused the tape on the image of the USS
Caron
frozen in place in the middle of Providence Channel.

Balcomb turned back to face the reporters and told them that he had copies of the videotape they could take with them. He started to sit down but then returned to the lectern and leaned in toward the microphone.

“I just wanted to say one other thing.” He paused, searching for the right words and peering through the lights to connect with someone. When he found Ben White, he was standing upright behind his video camera, not smiling but nodding his head just enough for Balcomb to see. “I was proud to be a military officer in defense of our country during the Vietnam War. But as I see these active sonar systems developing, I’m not even proud to be an American if we’re going to be destroying our whales and dolphins like this in the name of national defense.”

Later, when everyone on the dais had spoken and the reporters had asked their follow-up questions, Reynolds stepped forward and offered the press a parting sound bite: