Word: kekkonens
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...driven to Zavidovo, the Politburo hunting preserve-the Soviet Camp David-some 90 miles northeast of Moscow. This was intended as a great honor. No Western leader had ever been invited to Zavidovo; the only other foreigners to visit it, I was told, had been Tito and President Urho Kekkonen of Finland. Our hosts did their best to convey that good relations with the U.S. meant a great deal to them...
...carpenter and the holder of a Ph.D. in sociology, last week won 50.1% of the vote, enough to be assured of becoming his country's next President when Finland's 301-member electoral college meets this week. Then Koivisto will officially succeed Urho Kaleva Kekkonen, 81, who resigned in October because of crippling arteriosclerosis after leading Finland for a quarter-century...
...Koivisto was his likable image as a modest and occasionally irreverent individualist. Once a dock worker, he rose to become governor of the powerful Bank of Finland. Koivisto served two terms as Prime Minister, appointed by a man who was his opposite in temperament, the autocratic and short-tempered Kekkonen...
...graceless Soviet nudging provided a stark example of the workings of "Finlandization," the pejorative term for Finland's deferential relationship with the colossus next door. Kekkonen, who energetically supported the policy, called it "active neutrality." But to many Westerners, it has come to signify abject neutrality-or what happens to a lightly armed, nonaligned country in close proximity to the Soviet Union. According to some worst-case scenarios, all of Western Europe would be prone to Finlandization if it unilaterally scrapped the protection of its own and U.S. nuclear arms...
Ambivalence about Soviet patronage is a permeating fact of Finnish life, one that is not likely to change soon. Nor will the country's relationship with the Soviets, no matter who is elected President in January. As one Western diplomatic observer puts it, "Kekkonen anticipated Soviet objections for so long, it became a habit." The habit is one the Finns show little inclination of wanting-or daring-to break...