Word: finlandized
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Though it sounds like a rural rail route, the Paasikivi-Kekkonen Line is in fact the name of the foreign policy that has guided Finland since World War II: seeking accommodation with its mighty eastern neighbor, the Soviet Union. In pursuit of this policy, Finnish President Urho Kaleva Kekkonen, 69, flew to Moscow last week for the 16th time since he became Finland's head of state in 1956. This week, in keeping with his country's enduring but slightly off-balance neutrality, he will make his second state visit to the U.S. to discuss such matters...
Some Finns complain that Kekkonen, unlike his predecessor J.K. Paasikivi, is unnecessarily obsequious to the Soviets. "Paasikivi waited for the Russians to ask," grumbles one of the President's critics. "Kekkonen goes to the Russians and offers." His reasons are all too obvious. Finland has a population of only 4,700,000 (v. the Soviet Union's 240 million) and shares 788 miles of its 1,583-mile frontier with the Soviet Union. The Finns have been at war with Russia, both under Sweden's suzerainty and on their own, for a total of 90 years...
...great pains to avoid antagonizing the Russians. His government deplored the U.S. invasion of Cambodia but made no mention of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. It torpedoed Nordek, the proposed Scandinavian common market, mainly because the Soviets were suspicious of it. Even domestic politics reflects this concern. In Finland's March elections, the Conservatives finished in second place (out of eight parties). But when a five-party coalition was finally formed last week with longtime Foreign Minister Ahti Karjalainen as Premier, the Conservatives were excluded because Moscow might disapprove...
...branch, has 500,000 men. It has 3,400 interceptor aircraft, mostly MIG-19s and MIG-21s, and a number of giant TU-114s, which patrol Soviet borders as early-warning radar aircraft. Long-range antiaircraft SA-5 missiles are installed on the Tallinn Line along the Gulf of Finland. Around Moscow the Soviets have deployed the world's first ABM system, consisting of 64 Galosh missiles, which carry a 1-or 2-megaton warhead and have a range of several hundred miles. Because the Soviets halted deployment of the Galoshes three years ago, many Americans felt that...
...became one of Soviet Communism's staunchest soldiers. A favorite of Stalin, he rose to the rank of Marshal at the age of 45, won a reputation for tenacity and rigorous discipline if not for tactical brilliance He was called in to bolster the sagging Russian invasion of Finland in 1939 and led five armies plus 20 divisions in the famed battle of Smolensk in 1941. Though Timoshenko's troops were eventually defeated, his ten-week defensive stand ruined the Nazis' timetable and forced them into the bitter winter campaign for Moscow, which was a turning point...