Word: kekkonen
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Under the pragmatic foreign policy of President Urho Kekkonen, which is based on maintaining smooth relations with the Soviets, Communists have served in coalition governments since 1966. One branch of the party advocates a moderate "peaceful road" to Communist rule, but a hard-line faction insists on waging a "class-conscious fight against big capital." The rest of the nation, which remembers all too well that the Communists were caught plotting a coup in 1948, still takes the hardliners' threats more than half seriously. Last week, in a demonstration of their increased militancy, the tough faction incited workers...
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...
Helsinki Club. Mindful of all this-and of Nikita Khrushchev's attacks on the Finns in 1959 for including anti-Soviet politicians in their Cabinet-Kekkonen does indeed go to 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...
...Though Kekkonen is sometimes accused of being the Kremlin's errand boy, he has actually performed an adroit balancing act in his dealings with the Soviets. A northern lumberman's son who was once the national high-jump champion (top performance: 6 ft. in 1924), Kekkonen fought the Russians during World War I and in 1940 was one of only two members of Parliament who voted against ceding any Finnish territory to the Soviets. In 1943, however, he realized that the Nazis were losing the war and concluded that Finland would have to adopt a policy of Soviet...
...Kekkonen, whose present six-year term ends in 1974, says he will not run a fourth time-but few Finns believe him. The President takes pride in his working friendship with the Kremlin leadership. Many of its members belong to his "Helsinki Club," a select group of statesmen who have visited Helsinki and shared a sauna with him; Western members include Dean Rusk, King Baudouin of the Belgians and Sweden's Ex-Premier Tage Erlander. Finland's cabinet has its own version of the club, meeting regularly in the sauna at Kesaranta, the Premier's official residence...