Big Miracle

Big Miracle is based on the 1989 book Freeing the Whales: How the Media Created the World's Greatest Non-Event by Tom Rose. Excerpts from the book:

• More than 150 journalists from four continents representing at least 26 TV networks converged on the tiny Eskimo outpost of Barrow, Alaska, where on a chilly day the wind- whipped temperature can drop to 150 degrees below zero. Total cost of the media coverage and rescue - more than $5,795,000.
• Millions of people watched while the President of the United States and the General Secretary of the Soviet Union joined in the rescue of the three imprisoned whales.
• All because the struggle of the three trapped whales could be shown on global television, a democratic government a half a world away nearly collapsed.
• The media paid up to $200 to Eskimo entrepreneurs for a one-way 5-mile dog sled ride to the whale site, and if they didn't have enough cash for the return trip, they would have to wait until they were saved by rescue helicopters.
• The most remarkable bond produced by the rescue connected a decorated combat Colonel in the Alaska National Guard and a lovely White House aide 7000 miles away. The two met, over the phone, fell in love and married - all because of three hapless whales.
• Until recently the Russians operated the largest commercial whaling industry in the world. Then, as the result of just one phone call the Soviet Union sent two huge icebreakers to free the whales. Overnight the Soviets became instant environmentalists. Today, the Russians remain the world's largest killers of Gray whales.
• Yet, through the miracle of modern technology, the rescue of three whales caught in the Arctic ice captured the imaginations of hundreds of millions of people who for a brief moment in time felt that the world had become a better place for ourselves and the creatures who share it with us.