Word: halvard
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...walls of Oslo's 13th Century Akershus Fortress reverberated with laughter and deep-throated Scandinavian singing. The guests -97 ministers, generals, diplomats and politicians of Sweden, Denmark and Norway-toasted each other and their countries. Gay as any was the host, Norway's Foreign Minister Halvard Lange. Yet in his pocket crackled a crisp piece of paper, a note from Soviet Russia. The Soviet ambassador had delivered it just as Lange was leaving for the state dinner...
Treading Water. Halvard Lange would need courage and the ability to keep his feet on the ground if he were to cope with the U.S.S.R. He showed he had both when, the morning after the party, he wiped the slate clean of a lesser problem. Standing in the smoke-filled Oslo officers' club beneath a foot-high wall inscription of the Norwegian kings' motto, "Alt for Norge" (All for Norway), Lange voiced his final no to the Swedish-Danish suggestion of a Scandinavian neutrality bloc...
...Foolscap Sheets. Next day Halvard Lange discussed the Soviet note with Norway's cabinet. The note emphasized the fact that Norway has a common boundary with Russia-a 122½-mile strip on the Arctic tip of the Scandinavian peninsula. It asserted that the proposed Atlantic pact was an attempt by the U.S. and Britain to dominate the world. It asked Norway whether she was going to furnish the West with "air force or naval bases...
...Much Time to Lose. Next, Halvard Lange took on his critics in the Storting. At a special session, he told the isolationist nervous-Nellies that Norway alone "is not and cannot be militarily strong enough" either to discourage or fight off an attack by a great power. Whatever Norway decided, she would decide herself; he would bring back to the Storting the detailed conditions for joining the pact...
Waiting for a Taxi. At week's end Halvard Lange was ready to fly to the U.S. to get the facts. Just before his plane took off, he got another stern note from the U.S.S.R. Bulldozed Russia: Norway had "failed to give a clear reply" about foreign bases; Norway was guilty of a "suggestion that a threat of attack could emanate from the Soviet Union"; Norway should, "to eliminate any doubt," sign a non-aggression pact with Russia...