>The other superpower, though, was very much the focus of attention - particularly when Sweden's Prime Minister Olof Palme raised in dramatically undiplomatic terms the US actions in Vietnam, which he termed "ecocide".
>In Stockholm, the US remained resistant to discussing it. But in alliance with some of the campaign groups, it found a way to deflect the negative press it was receiving on the issue, by focusing on whaling.
>The US had by then stopped its own commercial whale hunts - so had its allies, the UK, Germany and the Netherlands. The only two countries carrying on were the USSR and Japan - which happened to be, respectively, its main political and economic rivals.