BOOK REVIEW: Latest instalment of Foreign Ministry history examines 1970s
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By Jukka Tarkka
Professor Timo Soikkanen has written the history of Finland’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs covering a period for which more material has been left in archives than at any other time.
Overlapping during the period are the arm wrestle with the Soviet Union on the interpretation of the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance, neutrality, and the free trade agreement with the EEC, the hope that a Finn might be chosen as the UN Secretary General, as well as the CSCE initiative and the related package for recognising the two Germanies.
Only a top-class juggler could keep all six balls in the air and under control at the same time. President Urho Kekkonen was such a person, but the trick could not have succeeded without the help of a few exalted figures in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
Soikkanen’s flowing presentation shows that two out of six operations were completely successful, considering the conditions of the time: the EEC and the CSCE. One failed: Finland did not get the position of Secretary General of the UN.
Three were partially successful. On the issues of neutrality, interpreting the FCMA Treaty, and the Germany package, the main goals were implemented technically, but the image of Finland was left a bit hazy.
In the midst of the upheaval over substance, the organisation of the ministry was reformed from end to end.
It is not possible to avoid a description of the constant shuffling involving the secretary of state institution, ministry sections, offices, diplomatic missions, commercial and industrial secretaries, projects and working groups. This is extremely trying on the resilience of both the writer and the reader.
There was always an aftermath of some round of appointments going on, and preparations were going on for the next. Both were affected by the substance questions: the internal pecking order of the ministry, and the tricks played by the Soviet Union on the side. At the same time, an ambitious training programme implemented by young civil servants radicalised the whole organisational atmosphere.
On top of all of this, there was a fierce battle between the Social Democrats and the Centre Party over civil servants’ posts, and soon alongside it was the competition between the ministry and the President’s Office over the favour of President Kekkonen.
When a leader weakens, power is wielded by whomever the leader listens to. Kekkonen played first into the hands of the Social Democrats, and then into those of the Centre Party. Toward the end of the decade, he became so tired that the ministry and the office were able to fire at each other unhindered. First to win was the President’s Office and later the Foreign Ministry.
Many of the elements of the psychological structure of the Foreign Ministry of the 1970s were in opposition to each other, and internally conflicted. There was a strong, but weakening president, a fraternity of strong civil servants, top politicians who envied the overwhelming power of the two, as well as a group of young civil servants at the early stages of their careers, who had experienced an awakening in left-wing politics.
In the structure visualised by Soikkanen, the leading position was first held by the President’s apparatus, whose key civil servants were Max Jakobson and Risto Hyvärinen.
The next brief phase was dominated by the Centre Party and the party brothers Matti Tuovinen and Keijo Korhonen.
The influx of Social Democrats into the ministry gave Yrjö Väänänen a position alongside Jaakko Iloniemi, who had achieved his post without extra political points.
The end of the decade was a period in which the Centre Party wielded power, and Centre Party brothers Keijo Korhonen and Paavo Väyrynen kept jostling each other.
Soikkanen has been granted perhaps more room to manoeuvre by the payers, minders, and targets of his study than is usually the case with commissioned works. As skilfully as important matters are presented, something significant is still missing.
The proposal by Soviet Minister of Defence Dmitri Ustinov for joint military exercises is skirted over lightly. What was not mentioned was how the Foreign Ministry blatantly lied, denying something that everyone knew to be true.
Finland suffered for a long time from the resulting credibility gap. If the existence of the proposal for joint military exercises had been acknowledged, it would have also been possible to say that it was rejected, which would have significantly helped Finland refute claims of Finlandisation.
Completely unsaid was Kekkonen’s clumsy attempt to gloss over the sharp rejection of Ustinov’s proposal after the fact and above all, how the dangerous risks in his stumbling performance were eliminated.
The decision was justifiable from an administrative point of view, because the keys to the defensive fight were not in the hands of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
The keys were used by Chief of Defence Lauri Sutela. One of the most central matters of Finnish foreign policy is nevertheless left untold in the history of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
The network of Russian contacts skilfully knit by the Soviet Union is brushed aside. Soikkanen notes that it cannot be shrugged off simply by revealing who offered lunch to whom, and how often. For this very reason, the reader is left waiting for an explanation of how Soviet agents were kept away from the hallways of the Foreign Ministry as successfully as they were.
Cooperation between the ministry’s leadership and the President was not the kind of browbeating by a powerful man that one might imagine on the basis of how Kekkonen would sometimes snap at people.
The President had a certain intellectual respect toward his closest assistants. He listened to arguments and allowed himself to be swayed by them, when the justifications were correct. Kekkonen’s hand-written texts were not the Word of God, and they could undergo significant development in the hands of the sharpest figures in the Foreign Ministry.
Kekkonen was conscious of his limitations. He was a master of bilateral relations, and not just in those related with the East. However he did not feel at home in multilateral diplomacy, which was what the civil servants were experts on. The head of state often watched what was happening only with his eyes. It was leadership at its best. Everyone did what he or she was good at.
The cooperation yielded wonderful results, although not everything succeeded, and although points for style were sometimes lacking, even when the main goals were achieved.
What was most important, nevertheless, was that Finland succeeded in keeping the Soviet Union at a reasonable distance, even though things did seem a bit frightening at times.
Timo Soikkanen: Presidentin ministeriö. Ulkoasiainhallinto ja ulkopolitiikan hoito Kekkosen kaudella. Uudistumisen, ristiriitojen ja menestyksen vuodet 1970–1981 (“The President’s Ministry. Foreign Affairs Administration and Foreign Policy in the Kekkonen Period. The Years of Renewal, Conflict, and Success 1970-1981") Otava Publishers, 610 pages.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 27.8.2008
Jukka Tarkka is a political scientist, researcher, and free-lance columnist.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 2.9.2008 - THIS WEEK |
 BOOK REVIEW: Latest instalment of Foreign Ministry history examines 1970s |
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