Photo: The Golden Rule crew (left-right): Albert S. Bigelow, Orion Sherwood, William Huntington, and George Willoughby.
George Willoughby was one of the signatories of a letter dated January 12, 1981, that invited people to help form an organization that would become Peace Brigades International at its founding meeting on Grindstone Island, 100 kilometres south of Ottawa, Canada in September 1981.
Willoughby maintained a long association with PBI and attended the PBI General Assembly north of Toronto, Ontario in June 1992 that approved the first Principles and Mandate statement for the organization.
Photo: Willoughby, with Steve Kaal, at PBI General Assembly, Toronto, 1992.
On May 1, 1958, Willoughby, along with Albert Bigelow (the captain), William R. Huntington (the first mate) and Orion Sherwood set sail on The Golden Rule sailboat from Honolulu towards the Marshall Islands to prevent an atomic weapons test.
The crew was arrested by the US Coast Guard five nautical miles from Hawaii.
On June 4, 1958, with Bigelow still in jail, Willoughby, Huntington and Sherwood were joined by Jim Peck in a second attempt to get to the Marshall Islands but were arrested and sentenced to sixty days in jail.
National Geographic has reported: “The Quakers who planned the Golden Rule’s 1958 voyage designed it as an act of civil disobedience to call attention to atmospheric nuclear weapons testing.”
That article highlights: “The voyage was halted by the U.S. Coast Guard and the captain, Albert Bigelow, a Quaker and former U.S. Navy lieutenant commander, was thrown in jail. The international publicity this confrontation attracted helped spur the growing opposition to nuclear tests and the arms race.”
It further notes: “The public demonstrations these direct actions provoked around the country caused a reluctant [US President Dwight D.] Eisenhower to suspend atomic tests in August 1958.”
The War Resisters League has also commented: “That opposition [generated by The Golden Rule also] eventually lead to the 1963 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty prohibiting nuclear testing in the atmosphere, underwater or in outer space.”
George Lakey (who was a PBI volunteer in Sri Lanka in 1989) has written in Waging Nonviolence: “When the Golden Rule was stopped by the U.S. government near Hawaii, Earle and Barbara Reynolds used their family’s sailing ship the Phoenix to continue the voyage toward the testing area. A decade later, activists with A Quaker Action Group, or AQAG, in turn used the Phoenix to bring medical aid to Vietnamese civilians suffering from the U.S. Naval blockade of the Vietnamese coast. Taking its cue from the Golden Rule voyage a decade earlier, the Phoenix’s voyages to Vietnam had the aim of launching a mass movement at a moment when none existed.”
Other Words has also noted: “The Golden Rule was the forebear of all the peace and environmental protest boats that followed, from the Sea Shepherds to Free Gaza. The connection to Greenpeace is direct.”
That article shares: “In 1971, Golden Rule supporter Marie Bohlen attended a meeting in Vancouver, Canada of people concerned about nuclear weapons testing. She suggested a voyage toward the U.S. nuclear test site in the Aleutian Islands á la the Golden Rule. Soon, the rusty trawler Phyllis Cormack was renamed the Greenpeace and headed north toward the Alaskan Archipelago. The rest, as they say, is history.”
In the spring of 2026, the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise provided support to the Global Sumud Flotilla sailing with aid to Gaza.
On May 2, 2026, PBI-Canada observed rally and march in Ottawa demanding the release of Global Sumud Flotilla human rights defenders from Israeli military custody. We see the link between this presence in 2026 and The Golden Rule in 1958.
On our 45th anniversary, PBI-Canada remembers and reaffirms the role of George Willoughby in the formation of Peace Brigades International and the inspiration his example provided for other initiatives that promote peace with justice.
Further reading
–The Golden Rule and Phoenix voyages in protest of U.S. nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands, 1958
–Golden Rule Project: Sailing for Peace in a Time of War
–Restored Anti-Nuke Sailboat Launches Again on a Peace Mission.
Photo: George Willoughby.
