Word: paasikivi
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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...