Big Miracle (42 page)

The rush was on to get the whales through the last four miles of ice and out to the pressure ridge. Supposedly, the Russians were only a day away. The rescuers counted on having but one chance to get the whales through any openings the Russians could cut in the pressure ridge. No one knew what kind of a problem the ridge would present, or if the Soviet ships could even surmount it. Ever since Bone vanished, the whales lived up to their end of the bargain. They burst into the new holes even before they were fully cut. Now more than ever, the rescue's success depended on the Eskimos.

When the Soviets agreed to join the party, the media scrambled for the first pictures of the Russian ships plowing through thick polar ice en route. But NBC was the only network with an independent means to win the race: a helicopter. It was a widely known secret in the prefab corridors of the Top of the World Hotel that NBC would start its chase through the menacing Arctic skies as soon as the Russian ships were within two hundred miles of Barrow.

No one was more aware of the looming scoop than ABC News producer Harry Chittick, who had been griping to Ron Morris for days about NBC's helicopter and the unfair advantage he thought it gave his competition. Jerry Hansen, Chittick's NBC counterpart, reminded Morris that there was no law against renting a helicopter and that, to date, there were no restrictions on flights that prevented the NBC chopper from getting the rescue's best and most reliable aerial video.

Chittick knew NBC had the edge, but he thought there might be a way to steal the scoop right from under Hansen's nose. Chittick spent Saturday morning trying to rent his own aircraft. The airplane he found would enable him to slip right past the slow-flying NBC helicopter and out to the icebreakers. He didn't even need a pilot. He was licensed to fly himself. Researchers in his Los Angeles office looked up the icebreakers in the maritime bible,
Jane's All the World's Fighting Ships
. Figuring out the icebreakers' speed, the ABC researchers calculated when the vessels would come within range. But by the time Chittick finally rented an airplane, it seemed too late. NBC appeared to have won again.

On Saturday afternoon, NBC's Don Oliver checked in with the international information exchange that connected the Soviet Merchant Marine, the U.S. government, and the Russian ships. Almost everyone knew where the center was located, Randy Crosby's office at the SAR hangar. SAR easily adapted to its new role. It was already headquarters for Tom Carroll's National Guard unit and the transit terminal for the media. SAR was Operation Breakout's official headquarters. The U.S. government reports estimated the Russians to be about 170 miles northeast of Barrow. Then the icebreakers encountered unexpectedly thick ice. The ships reduced their speed to less than three knots, much slower than originally predicted. Moreover, the satellite photographs and computer-enhanced charts transmitted to the bridge of the
Admiral Makarov
revealed that a large ice floe lay directly across their planned route to Barrow. Master Reshetov had no choice but to chart a lengthy detour. The revised schedule estimated the icebreakers would arrive in Barrow between twenty-four to thirty-six hours late.

Though still too far away to help the whales, the icebreakers were within striking distance of making it on the evening news. The NBC helicopter had a standard range of about 350 miles under “favorable conditions,” a term which could not be applied to the Arctic. The “no return point” was 175 miles. Flying outbound any further than that meant there would not be enough fuel to make it back. The weather threatened to make the trip even more dangerous.

Dense ice fog hugged the ground, hiding a thick layer of cloud cover just overhead. By the end of October 1988, Barrow was already so cold that even the tiniest particles of water vapor froze into ice crystals so small they escaped even the force of gravity. The ice fog enveloped everything. In settled areas like Barrow, ice fog reduced visibility to absolute zero. By mid-afternoon, Randy Crosby grounded all his helicopters and advised others to do the same. NBC was not about to let the weather get in the way of a good story.

The safety of the freelance crew was a minor impediment to obtaining the first video of the icebreakers, pictures that would run at most for five to eight seconds on the evening news. Viewers would never know the risks taken to get them. The pressure to fly was never explicit. It didn't have to be. News doesn't wait for the timid and it doesn't give second chances. Since NTV, the network my company was hired to represent, was paying for half the helicopter, I insisted we try to get in on the action. Earlier that morning, over Pepe's greasy home fries and soft, butter-soaked Wonder bread, I asked Jerry Hansen, the NBC producer, what he thought about using our chopper to find the approaching ships. Hansen swallowed nervously as if I had spoken a secret too loudly. His eyes looked around to see if anyone had heard, motioning for me to keep quiet. “Everything is being taken care of,” he told me. He was right.

My cameraman, Steve Mongeau, and I went to NARL where the helicopter was based. For several hours we waited for the pilots to give the “go.” By late afternoon, it was apparent that the ice fog wasn't going to lift. The two pilots showed little enthusiasm for the Saturday-night death run, but they had most demanding clients. They had long since quit reminding us to keep our seatbelts on while hanging out the hovering helicopter's open doors. The weather was as uncertain as the precise position of the Soviet ships. All that was certain was that we were going to look for them. If the icebreakers were 170 miles or closer, they would be five miles inside the “no return point,” just ten miles short of the helicopter's maximum range. This was little margin for error. NBC cameraman Bruce Gray remarked that finding the ships in the thick fog with so little room to maneuver would be like finding a needle in a haystack. Long stretches of silence marked the eerie journey out. But as the fuel gauge neared half empty, there was still no sign of the Russians.

Encroaching darkness threatened to spoil more than the photography. As night fell so too did the chances of survival should anything go awry. As No one would have survived of the crew in an emergency landing anyway. We later learned there were no flotation devices aboard the aircraft. As the helicopter came closer to the “no return point,” the pilots turned off the inner cabin intercom so they could talk among themselves without us hearing.

If they didn't turn the helicopter around within the next couple of minutes, we would not have enough fuel to get back. There would be no choice but to land on an iceberg and pray to be saved. Because of the safety violations, the pilots didn't want to take the chance of radioing for rescue for fear of losing their licenses. When they turned around to announce the situation, Gray was preparing his camera to shoot. At almost that exact instant, the eerie silhouette of the 496-foot
Admiral Makarov,
the pride of the Soviet icebreaker fleet, loomed menacingly into view. The satellite tracking proved dead on. It was within yards of the pilots' projections. Spinning his finger in the air to signal a flight around the ship, Gray pleaded for the chance to at least get some decent pictures of the immense Soviet icebreakers. He furiously readied his camera for the difficult task of shooting under such rushed conditions. It was now or never.

The chopper dove within just a few hundred feet of the ships towering deck. Curious sailors clambered on deck to inspect the unidentified visitor. Gray told the pilots to slow their air speed so he could make the special adjustments his camera needed to work in the near dark. When the chopper's nose pulled away on its uncertain flight back to Barrow, the only footage of the Soviet icebreakers sat on Gray's lap. He had a marginally important scoop. But as his own life hung perilously in the balance, he wondered whether what he had just done was courageous or stupid.

Flying across the pitch-black Arctic, no one was sure what lay below: water or ice. Either way it was cold and getting colder. Worry intensified. The fuel gauge continued to plummet. With the heat turned off to conserve fuel, the temperature in the cabin dropped below zero. The minutes stretched long and uncertain. Thankfully, a fortuitous shift in the wind cut the helicopter's drag, giving it just enough fuel to allow a safe landing at the NARL helipad. The footage everyone had risked their lives for didn't even air until twenty-four hours later on Sunday's
NBC's Nightly News.
By the time the precious pictures had run, ABC had already aired their own footage shot sixteen hours after NBC's. NBC won the battle but lost the war, a war that, like the rescue itself, was created and fought by and for the media.

22

Sergei Reshetov: “Let's Cut Ice”

Like the whales they were diverted to save, the Russians were running very late. By the time the massive ships broke across Barrow's horizon at around noon on Tuesday, October 25, the two icebreakers were almost two days behind schedule. The 440-foot
Vladimir Arseniev,
the smaller of the two ships, led the way. Eighteen days after the stranded whales were first found, two of the mightiest ships in the Soviet Merchant Navy arrived to complete the trapped animals' improbable route to freedom. The ships were so large, and the terrain so flat, they were easily visible from town, some twenty-five miles away. Parked at a safe distance from the pressure ridge, the massive icebreakers were less than ten miles from the whales they came to redeem.

Crowds of reporters busily jockeyed for position in the line outside the SAR hangar. They were desperate to see the day's press pool assignment. Master Reshetov cabled Ron Morris to tell him that the American pool reporters were welcome on his ship. After all, the Russians had dispatched the icebreakers with an eye to favorable publicity. Pool coverage rotated on a daily basis among the four American networks: ABC, CBS, CNN, and NBC. Because of our own rented helicopter, we rarely had to rely on the pool. The exception was for access to the Soviet ships.

CNN correspondent Greg Lefevre and his two-man crew were the first non-Soviet television reporters scheduled to board the
Admiral Makarov
. They joined coordinator Ron Morris and his overseer Admiral Sigmund Petersen, the Pacific NOAA fleet commander. Randy Crosby flew them out. We trailed just a few hundred yards behind in our own helicopter. The only difference was that they were allowed to land and we were not. We did the next best thing, augmenting the pool material with our own exclusive aerials. Big deal.

Listening to heavily accented instructions from the
Arseniev,
Crosby eased back the throttle and touched down squarely on the landing pad at the stern of the 496-foot ship. The engine idled while Crosby waited for the signal to power down. His eyes darted about in fascination. As he waited, Crosby couldn't help but think what a far cry this was from a normal day's work.

Ten days before, he was just the director of the North Slope Borough's Search and Rescue department, a peculiar emergency services division established to aid subsistence Eskimos. His primary job was rescuing stranded native hunters stuck on the tundra or a floating block of ice in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. Now he was piloting a U.S. admiral and a CNN television crew, but VIPs were nothing new. Just a year before, Crosby flew novelist James Michener around the Arctic to research his bestselling book,
Alaska.

But landing on Soviet icebreakers? That was new. The huge hammer and sickle painted on the smokestack dispelled any doubt about where he was. By convention of international maritime law, Randy Crosby, father of four, had just landed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Crosby saw a heavy metal hatch slowly open at the base of the ship's superstructure. It was the first sign of life. A few seconds later, a small, heavily bundled man tentatively emerged. He walked to the helipad, stopped, and stared. After giving the American visitors the once-over, the unidentified man turned back toward the open door and nodded.

Brandishing warm smiles and effusive greetings, several more of the ship's crew appeared. Ron Morris waved the CNN camera crew out of the chopper first so they could capture every bit of the official welcome on film. A Soviet television crew was already on deck. With both cameras rolling Morris jumped down from behind the helicopter's plastic door to bask in the attention of Master Sergei Reshetov and his next in command, First Officer Alexander Patsevich. Behind him came NOAA's Admiral Sigmund Petersen.

“Ron Morris, U.S. government,” the NOAA coordinator introduced himself to his Soviet counterparts. His rank grew more impressive each time he mentioned it. By week's end, Morris would reportedly tell journalists and rescuers alike that he was the Reagan administration's official representative. The White House was furious. Bonnie Mersinger's line was bombarded by White House and Commerce Department higher-ups demanding that someone “put a muzzle” on the coordinator.

“Who the hell is this guy?” a senior White House official demanded of Mersinger, the administration's whale rescue liaison. It was her job to find out. Just ten days from obscurity, Ron Morris was on record as saying he was an official representative of the president of the United States. Assistant Commerce Secretary William Evans saw the low-level Ron Morris on television speaking to reporters as if he were sent to coordinate the rescue by Ronald Reagan himself. Angry and dismayed, Secretary Evans sent Morris a stern memo of rebuke:

I have been contacted by the White House via the Secretary of Commerce's Chief of Staff with reports that you have represented yourself to the press as an official representative of the President and/or the Administration,” the memo began. “This is incorrect behavior and you will cease all contact with the press on the subject of any fisheries program without first clearance from the Assistant Administrator of NOAA for Fisheries. You do not represent the administration. You have either been grossly misquoted or have not made your role clear to the media as a federal employee.