Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 25, 1990 TAG: 9003252031
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ANCHORAGE, ALASKA LENGTH: Long
"The book was `Les Miserables,' " he said, "and it seemed like I was Jean Valjean with a hundred inspectors chasing me around in the sewers of Paris."
Later, in an Anchorage courtroom, he remembered a line he had read about the justice system being "a meat grinder, a sausage grinder - you go into it in one form and you come out something else.
"I went in there reasonably starry-eyed that justice would be done," he said. "If anything, I'm more cynical now."
Hazelwood, who had just been acquitted of three major charges and convicted of a low-level misdemeanor in the nation's worst oil spill, reflected Friday on the year that changed his life in his first interview since his trial began two months ago.
Later in the day, he was sentenced to pay $50,000 restitution and spend 1,000 hours helping clean up the oiled beaches of Prince William Sound.
He was asked how he felt about all the wildlife killed as a result of his oil spill.
"It was a terrible tragedy," he said. "There's no getting around it. "It will affect me as it will affect everybody for a long time."
The 43-year-old skipper talked of his past and future after being acquitted of criminal mischief, reckless endangerment and operating a vessel while intoxicated. He was convicted of negligent discharge of oil.
His lawyers stood by as he spoke, blocking detailed comments about the events of March 24, 1989, when his ship went aground spilling nearly 11 million gallons of oil. Civil suits remain to be faced.
Hazelwood remembered his feelings when the tanker hit a charted reef.
"It was just like a big punch in the gut, like the wind's knocked out of you but there's no recovering," he said.
Soon, there were headlines alleging he was drunk while in command - an issue that stings Hazelwood even though jurors rejected it, noting blood-alcohol tests on the captain weren't done until more than 10 hours after the grounding.
"I resented it, yeah," he said. "The dragging in of my private life into a public arena. Alcohol didn't have anything to do with this. It's the biggest red herring. It made for nice splashy headlines. If I was an ax murderer ashore, would that have made this a splashier grounding?"
The tall, balding Hazelwood described himself as "a reasonably normal, anonymous person" before the grounding.
"I'm Joe Schmo, a boat driver basically, and you get thrust into this limelight, catapulted into this starring role. I wasn't equipped for it."
Maybe, he said, Zsa Zsa Gabor could handle it, or Oliver North. But not Joe Hazelwood.
Who was Joe Hazelwood? He was born in Hawkinsville, Ga. His father was a Marine Corps aviator and commercial 747 pilot. An older sister and one brother became lawyers. Another brother conducts the Battle Creek, Mich., symphony.
The family moved to Long Island when Hazelwood was a teen-ager, and he still lives there, in Huntington, N.Y. His wife, Suzanne, is a former nurse and they have a 14-year-old daughter, Alison.
The call of the sea came early.
"There was a romance to the sea when I started out," he said, recalling how he signed up at 14 to sail on fishing boats.
"I wanted to see what was over the horizon, and I found out," he said.
Now, in the world of high tech, computerized tankers, "It's developed into a pretty sterile atmosphere."
"It's not the captain lashed to the wheel or Errol Flynn flying through the rigging," he said. "It's pretty low key. That was the biggest problem with the trial other than pretrial publicity, educating the jury on how ships operate."
To accomplish that, Hazelwood turned to an old school chum, Michael Chalos, who was his classmate at the New York University Maritime Academy at Fort Schuyler, N.Y.
Chalos, a jovial, outgoing lawyer who put together the defense team, and Hazelwood, quiet and reflective, grew as close as brothers. Asked what sustained him during the trial, Hazelwood said, "Mostly it was Michael and his effervescent personality."
Hazelwood said he will be paying court costs for a long time. His retirement savings and contributions from friends went into the defense. He said Exxon offered no financial help.
For weeks at the trial, he sat and watched his former shipmates testify against him. How did that feel?
"They're shipmates and friends. They were just telling the truth," he said. "I'm sure they didn't want to submarine me, do me any harm."
Hazelwood even declines to fault the captains who took the stand for the prosecution and called him reckless. "That was their opinion," he said.
But he insisted the procedure of a captain leaving the ship's bridge in the hands of other officers is not unusual - "It's standard operating procedure."
Once, about 17 years ago, he sailed as a junior officer on a freighter from New York to South Africa.
"The captain said to me: `Can you find South Africa?' I said, `Yes, sir.' He said, `Call me when we get there,' " Hazelwood recalled.
Does he think he was a scapegoat?
"I always thought scapegoat was kind of a strong word," he said. "I was a convenient lightning rod for a lot of agendas. Using me served their purposes well to deflect the limelight. A year ago, many people were outraged and you had corporations, entities, these nameless, faceless organizations.
"Everyone wanted this person to relate to, another human being, not an office building. They wanted a person to vent their frustrations on and, unfortunately, it was me."
Now, with the trial behind him, Hazelwood dreams again of the sea.
"I'd like to sail as the master of something again," he said, but is unsure whether he wants to fight for his old job with Exxon.
Where would he like to be a year from now?
"At sea," he said. "Going somewhere and coming from somewhere."
by CNB