Word: risto
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Helsinki, balding, sad-eyed ex-President Risto Ryti and seven other Cabinet ministers had been tried, under special retroactive legislation, for "contributing to Finland's entry into the war on Germany's side." Twelve Finns had tried for 19 days to reach a verdict, with Russia impatiently looking over their shoulders. Last week, the tribunal announced a verdict of guilty. The Finnish court had obviously shared worldwide doubts on whether the responsibility for war was a crime. In relation to the charge, the sentences were fantastically light. Ryti and his colleagues would serve an average of 4.8 years...
Meanwhile the Russian government was reported to be hunting three Finnish war criminals: ex-Premier Risto Ryti, ex-Premier Edwin Linkomies, ex-Finance Minister Väinö Tanner. The staid New York Times reflected a change in the political climate and habits of a decade by reporting not that the fugitive Finns had gone into hiding, but that they "had gone underground...
...grey-red House of Representatives, Finland's Eduskunta (parliament) met five times in one day. In its fifth fevered session it jolted stubborn, Russophobic President Risto Ryti out of office, gave his job to Finland's one indubitably strong man, stubborn, Russophobic Field Marshal Baron Carl Gustav Mannerheim...
Businessmen and industrialists joined hands with Finland's biggest trade-union leader, oldtime Bolshevik Eero Vuori. Vuori might become a link between Bolshevik-hating Baron Mannerheim and Moscow. For despite Risto Ryti's promise to Hitler, secret talks between Finns and Russians had been resumed in Stockholm. Out of them came a Finnish hope that Moscow would deal with Mannerheim...
Through three daylight summer nights Ribbentrop played on President Risto Ryti's fear of Red Russians while spineless Henrik Ramsay, Finland's Foreign Minister, and indecisive Premier Edwin Linkomies sat by bemused. Then Ryti took the offer to the full Cabinet. He encountered unexpected opposition from Russian-hating Finance Minister Väinö Tanner, strong man of Finnish politics and long the leader of Finland's fight-to-the-finish school. The battle in the Cabinet was so close that Ryti decided against submitting the proposal to the Finnish Diet. Instead he used his wartime power...