At 23:38, an explosion reverberated across Auckland Harbour. A military grade limpet mine had been attached to the hull of the Rainbow Warrior - the force of the explosion partially lifted her out of the water.
The Breezer - the joyride for a curious mind: A weekly newsletter from Steve Winduss at the Batting the Breeze podcast. Spend a few minutes with me discovering historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week. Add to that updates relating to the podcast, a touch of humour and a dash of "lots more".6th July 2025.
Happy Sunday! Nuclear weapons are once again dominating the headlines. They have recurred periodically over the last eighty years, ever since Paul Tibbets flew his Boeing B-29 Superfortress, the Enola Gay, over the Japanese city of Hiroshima to unleash the world’s first atomic bomb used in warfare, ‘Little Boy’, in August 1945. The Soviets shocked the world when they launched their atomic bomb in 1949. In the same year in China, the Nationalists were overpowered by Communists under the leadership of Mao Zedong. A sense of vulnerability swept across America as their nuclear monopoly crumbled and communism’s threat loomed larger. In the 1950s, the fragile situation was exacerbated by Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy. Facing a tough re-election, the Wisconsin senator seized on the nation’s anxieties and exploited them for political advantage. In February 1950, he delivered a provocative claim that he had procured a list of Communist Party members working in the State Department.
Senator Joseph McCarthy, 1954.
‘McCarthyism’ escalated mild hysteria into a full-scale national witch-hunt. Innocent politicians, government employees, journalists, entertainers, teachers and ordinary citizens were blacklisted or lost their jobs based on rumours propagated by McCarthy. Although the truth caught up with the senator, the distrust of communism and fear of nuclear attack refused to die down.
In the 1960s, the Cuban Missile Crisis, a 13-day confrontation between the United States and Soviet Union, brought the world to the brink of nuclear disaster. In April 1961, President John F. Kennedy had authorised the Bay of Pigs invasion, aimed at overthrowing the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and his Communist government. The operation failed. Simultaneously, the U.S. were deploying Jupiter nuclear-armed missiles in Italy and Turkey. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev was spooked. Khrushchev reciprocated by covertly deploying medium-range nuclear missiles in Cuba. Some of these weapons had a range of up to 2,800 miles. Florida was only 90 miles away. U.S. intelligence uncovered the clandestine activity within a month, on 14 October 1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis was unfolding.
John F. Kennedy discusses aerial photo reconnaissance over Cuba with the United States Air Force at the White House, October 1962.
Kennedy and Khrushchev, realising the enormity of the situation, broke the high-stakes stand-off through secret diplomatic channels. They reached a compromise agreement whereby both sides would withdraw their missiles, and, in addition, the U.S. would not invade Cuba. The public announcement didn’t mention the U.S. withdrawal of nuclear missiles from Turkey and Italy. To do so would have suggested an unacceptable weakness on the part of the United States Government. The truth stayed buried for 27 years.
The 1970s was the decade of the SALT Treaties (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks). The treaties fostered closer cooperation between both sides to minimise the risk of future nuclear confrontations. However, they failed to reduce existing nuclear stockpiles. SALT I was signed in 1972. However, when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the remaining trust between the superpowers evaporated, and Jimmy Carter asked the U.S. Senate to postpone ratification of the SALT II Treaty.
President Jimmy Carter and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev sign the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II) treaty, June 18, 1979, in Vienna.
Ronald Reagan came to power in 1981 with an aggressive anti-communist agenda. The Soviet Union was “an evil empire”. Again, the West was in a stand-off with the communist superpower. The arms race was back on. Soviet fears of European invasion weren’t without historical foundation. After all, Napoleon had tried and failed in 1812, as had Hitler with Operation Barbarossa in 1941. Nonetheless, the nuclear threat was of an entirely different magnitude. Reagan’s most ambitious initiative was the launch of Star Wars, a science-fictionesque programme that, among other things, would employ space-based lasers to intercept Soviet nuclear missiles. In addition, U.S. Pershing missiles were deployed in West Germany and cruise missiles in the UK.
Out of Curiosity
By 1986, the world boasted 70,300 nuclear weapons. 64% of these were held by the Soviet Union, 33% by the USA, with the remaining 3% split between the UK, France and China. By the time Reagan had left office in 1989, the total number of nuclear weapons worldwide had fallen to approximately 65,000. The decline accelerated thereafter. There are roughly 12,000 nuclear warheads stockpiled globally today. These nuclear weapons are still predominantly located in the United States and Russia (90%), with the rest held by the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea.
In 1983, when NATO executed the field exercise ‘Able Archer 83’ a little too close to the borders of the Warsaw Pact countries, the ailing Soviet leader Yuri Andropov supposedly lay in his bed with his trembling finger on the ’Cheget’, the Soviet equivalent of the ‘red button’. The peak of nuclear tension in the 1980s likely occurred a couple of years later in 1985, just as Mikhail Gorbachev came to power following the death of Konstantin Chernenko. The relationship between Reagan and Gorbachev would mark a turning point in the nuclear arms race.
So, suffice it to say that, by 1985, the world was in a state of nuclear paranoia. This paranoia unnerved world leaders across the globe, none more so than French President François Mitterrand. France was pursuing its own nuclear weapons programme in the Pacific, with testing focused on the colonial islands of French Polynesia. The two primary locations were Mururoa and Fangataufu atolls, approximately 750 miles from the capital of French Polynesia, Papeete. That nuclear paranoia was about to lead the French authorities into the most brazen act of marine sabotage ever perpetrated by a Western nation against one of its own allies.
Out of Curiosity
An atoll is a curiously shaped coral island formed over millions of years under a very particular set of circumstances. Coral formation requires warm, shallow waters, making French Polynesia’s tropical ocean perfect for the task. Coral reefs often grow around volcanic islands as they provide the necessary shallow waters as well as sloped, hard surfaces on which coral larvae are encouraged to settle. Once volcanic activity has ceased, a volcanic island will increase in density as it cools down and slowly subside into the Earth’s crust. However, the coral will continue to grow upwards and outwards; upwards to seek the light, and outwards to benefit from the nutrient-rich ocean while avoiding the murky, sedimented volcanic deposits towards the centre. The net result is a ring-shaped coral island, formed over 5 to 10 million years. A large lagoon then occupies the majority of the internal space where the volcano once stood proudly above the surface.
Baa Atoll Islands, Maldives. A classic example of atoll formation.
In 1954, the United States had tested a hydrogen bomb at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The bomb was 1,000 times more powerful than Paul Tibbets’ Hiroshima bomb. The citizens of Rongelap Atoll, only 94 miles away from Bikini, were engulfed in radioactive ash. After three years of evacuation to Kwajalein Atoll, the U.S. Government returned Rongelap citizens home. For the next thirty years, Rongelap residents suffered from hair loss, skin burns, various cancers, miscarriages and birth defects. Their pleas for evacuation were ignored. In May 1985, the environmental activist group, Greenpeace, was patrolling the South Pacific in its flagship vessel, Rainbow Warrior. The converted trawler answered Rongelap’s plea for help and evacuated the entire 350-citizen population to Mejatto Island.
Rainbow Warrior in Amsterdam Harbour, 1981.
By this time, Greenpeace had become quite sophisticated in its ability to expose the questionable practices of nation-states. Besides the Rongelap rescue mission, Rainbow Warrior had successfully disrupted a number of French nuclear tests. The negative press coverage piled further pressure on the French, even though they were not directly implicated in the Rongelap incident. The French solution: The Rainbow Warrior must be neutralised… permanently. ‘Operation Satanique’ was conceived. Operation Satanique epitomised the madness that had consumed supposedly civilised Western governments in the mid-eighties. The French would wait until the Rainbow Warrior docked in Auckland Harbour, New Zealand, attach explosives to the trawler’s hull and later set them off and sink the trawler. Simple.
Forty years ago this Thursday, 10 July 1985, the Rainbow Warrior was moored at Marsden Wharf in Auckland Harbour. The crew were resting on board after a day of planning to disrupt French nuclear testing at Moruroa Atoll the following day. The French had other ideas. Operation Satanique was underway. At 23:38, an explosion reverberated across Auckland Harbour. A military grade limpet mine had been attached to the hull of the Rainbow Warrior adjacent to the engine room earlier that evening. The force of the explosion partially lifted the Rainbow Warrior out of the water. Although the crew were panicked and shocked, no one was injured. As water poured in, they set about evacuating the ship. As the crew assessed the damage from the safety of the wharf, Fernando Pereira, the ship’s Portuguese-Dutch photographer, returned below deck to rescue his expensive camera equipment. The story was about to take a very sinister turn. Unbeknown to Fernando, a second limpet mine had been planted. As he reached his cabin at the aft of the boat, the mine exploded, seven minutes after the first, at 23:45. It had been placed just above the ship’s propeller shaft and directly below Fernando’s cabin. Within four minutes, the Rainbow Warrior was resting, partially submerged, on the harbour bed. Navy divers retrieved Fernando Pereira’s body at 04:00 the following morning.
The arrogance of the French Government was staggering. They had recklessly destroyed a ship with crew members aboard, in the territorial waters of a sovereign ally - one that had, incidentally, announced its nuclear-free status a year earlier in 1984. David Lange, the incumbent New Zealand Prime Minister, described the events as “a sordid act of international state-backed terrorism”. The arrogance was only matched by the excruciating denials that followed for the next two months. Even when two of the probable eleven French agents had been caught, Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart, following a tip-off from an unwitting witness on the night of July 10, the French vehemently denied involvement. It was only after sustained media scrutiny and mounting international pressure that France came clean. They admitted that the orders to destroy the Rainbow Warrior had come straight from the French Government. Prieur and Mafart received a 10-year sentence. The United Nations mediated a settlement whereby the French would pay compensation of $7 million to the New Zealand Government. Greenpeace received $8 million in a subsequent arbitration. Fernando Pereira’s family received modest compensation. In return, Prieur and Mafart would serve their full 10-year incarceration, under French jurisdiction, on Hao Atoll in French Polynesia. Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart were repatriated less than two years later. The remaining nine French agents escaped justice altogether.
As for the Rainbow Warrior, she was towed to Matauri Bay in North New Zealand, where she was laid on the seabed to serve as a shrine for divers and a haven for sea life. Ironically, Greenpeace used the compensation payout to finance a new and improved Rainbow Warrior, which served for 22 years before being retired. A third Rainbow Warrior was launched in 2011 and continues to travel the world today.
Dates with History
Wednesday…
Zachary Taylor, the United States’ 12th President, was born in Orange County, Virginia in 1784. He was raised from a young age in Jefferson County, Kentucky, at a time when Native Americans were contesting the occupation of land by white settlers. Taylor’s parents were plantation owners whose wealth was enhanced by the move to Kentucky and the labour of enslaved people. Zachary pursued a successful career in the U.S. Army. As a leader, he often disregarded formal protocol, choosing to dress simply and to share both the challenges and daily experiences of military life with his troops. It was this unpretentious style that led him to the White House in 1849. The most pressing issue during Taylor’s presidency was whether the newly acquired territories of California, New Mexico, and Utah would permit slavery or be admitted as free states. Despite his upbringing in a family of slave owners, Taylor opposed the expansion of slavery into the new lands. By 4 July 1850, the United States had reached a crisis point over the status of the new territories. North and South were heavily polarised. Zachary Taylor had attended Independence Day ceremonies in Washington, D.C. It had been a swelteringly hot day. When Taylor returned to the White House later in the day, drained and exhausted, he tucked into some ice-cold milk and raw cherries as a reviver. Within hours, he was suffering from excruciating stomach cramps. Five agonising days later, 175 years ago this Wednesday, 9 July 1850, the United States President passed away. The military hero had been felled by a bout of gastroenteritis.
The Death of General Z. Taylor, 1850.
Zachary Taylor had served as U.S. President for 16 months. As a footnote, rumours of Taylor's poisoning persisted. In 1991, 141 years after his death, Zachary Taylor’s body was exhumed for testing. No poison was detected.
Question of the Week
Josiah Wedgwood, the illustrious potter, was born 295 years ago this coming Saturday, 12 July 1730. He launched Josiah Wedgwood and Sons Ltd in Stoke-on-Trent, England, in 1759, known as ‘Wedgwood’. The company would become one of the world’s most prestigious and respected ceramics manufacturers. Josiah’s granddaughter, Emma Wedgwood, married the naturalist and future author of ‘On the Origin of Species’, Charles Darwin, in 1839. What was Emma and Charles’ relationship to each other before they got married?
And Finally…
Have you ever been passionate about something? No, I mean really passionate? Think Howard Hughes and aviation, or Steve Jobs and computers. Salvador Dali was so obsessed with his moustache that he wrote a book dedicated to it. How about Bobby Fischer, the chess grandmaster who studied chess for up to 14 hours every day? And then there was Caligula and his horse, Incitatus….. but I digress. All a bit whacky, but can you imagine developing a passion for… sliced bread. That is, bread that has been immaculately cut so that each slice is exactly the same thickness? Today, we don’t give this a second thought, but in 1928, this was a pipe dream for some, but an obsession for a 32-year-old from Des Moines, Iowa, Otto Frederick Rohwedder. Otto was born 145 years ago tomorrow, 7 July 1880. As he came of age, America was surging toward industrial supremacy, soon to overtake Britain as the world’s manufacturing powerhouse. It was the age of innovation. By the age of 32, Otto was running three jewellery stores in St Joseph, Missouri. He was struck by the idea that his customers, mainly housewives, would discuss domestic issues more than the jewellery they had come to purchase. Often, the subject of home bread-making was raised. Nearly as often, a comment would be made regarding the difficulties of slicing the bread once it was baked. Otto was triggered. He put his mind to inventing a bread-slicing machine. In 1912, he surveyed over 30,000 housewives to gather their views on sliced bread, specifically regarding the ideal thickness. Buoyed by the results, he sold his jewellery stores to finance his obsession. Sixteen years and numerous prototypes later, Otto had cracked it. Otto Rohwedder’s bread slicer was launched on his 48th birthday, 7 July 1828 and he was granted a patent on 12 July 1932 for a ‘Machine for Slicing an Entire Loaf of Bread at a Single Operation’. The machine could slice 1,000 loaves per hour. An experienced baker might take up to six working days to complete the same task.
Bread slicing machine in action, 1930, thought to be the machine invented by Otto Frederick Rohwedder.
Sales took off. Even through the Great Depression, 80% of American bread was pre-sliced by 1933, largely thanks to Otto’s invention. Unfortunately, the intrepid inventor had sold his patent rights the year before to overcome cash flow issues caused by the Depression. He would join the company that bought the rights, Micro-Westco Co. Of Bettendorf, Iowa, and remained with them as vice president until his retirement in 1951 at the age of 71. It turns out that Otto Frederick Rohwedder’s invention really was the best thing since sliced bread.
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Thank you for joining me. Have a great week!
Steve
HOST & CHIEF STORY HUNTER
P:S: No newsletter next Sunday - look forward to catching up with you on 20th July.
Question of the week… answer
Emma Wedgwood and Charles Darwin were first cousins when they married in 1839. Josiah Wedgwood was the grandfather of Charles and Emma. Josiah and his wife Sarah had seven children. Two of these siblings were Susannah, mother to Charles, and Josiah Wedgwood II, father to Emma. First cousin marriage had been legal and socially acceptable in England since Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic Church in 1534. Emma and Charles were in good company; First cousins King George IV and Queen Caroline married in 1795, while Queen Victoria and Prince Albert married in 1840.
Bread slicing machine in action, 1930, thought to be the machine invented by Otto Frederick Rohwedder: See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
The Suez Canal at Port Said, 1956, showing a number of the blockships sunk by the Egyptians to prevent use of the canal. Royal Navy salvage vessels prepare to clear the obstructions: US Department of State, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
John F. Kennedy discusses aerial photo reconnaissance over Cuba with the United States Air Force at the White House, October 1962. Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the U.S. Information Agency, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
President Jimmy Carter and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev sign the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II) treaty, June 18, 1979, in Vienna: Photo Credit: Bill Fitz-Patrick, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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