Prime Minister Koivisto held secret security policy discussions with Sweden in 1980
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By Kari Huhta
Finnish and Swedish Prime Ministers Mauno Koivisto and Thorbjörn Fälldin held two days of discussions on security policy at a secret meeting in a cabin in Swedish Lapland in 1980. The meeting was held even though it had been opposed by President Urho Kekkonen.
Information of the meeting, which has been kept a secret for nearly 27 years, came out in a book on security policy published to mark the 70th birthday of Swedish diplomat and Finland expert Krister Wahlbäck.
The secret meeting was arranged at Koivisto’s request at a time when there was some uncertainty over the stability of Northern Europe. Speculation on the state of health of President Kekkonen and on his possible successor was also beginning, according to Swedish diplomat Fredrik Vahlquist. The article was made public by the Swedish website www.utrikesbloggen.se.
No decisions were made at the meeting, nor was any practical action proposed. According to a diary entry by Lennart Ljung, the commander of the Swedish Defence Forces at the time, "Koivisto mostly asked questions, and we tried to explain the Swedish view on the security policy situation in the North".
The most important concern in the area was the wave of strikes that had begun in Poland, which later proved to be the first tremor leading to the collapse of the socialist camp. In addition, NATO was planning to store more weapons in Norway.
Fälldin, of Sweden’s Centre Party, was Prime Minister of Sweden from 1976 to 1982. Social Democrat Koivisto became Finland’s Prime Minister for a second time in 1979. He was elected President after Kekkonen, who had fallen ill, stepped aside in October 1981. At the time of the meeting in Swedish Lapland, Kekkonen’s illnesses were still hushed up.
Vahlquist heard about the secret meeting for the first time from Koivisto in 2001, while serving as a diplomat in Helsinki. He collected the finer details from Ljung’s private diaries.
Koivisto originally proposed a meeting which would have involved the prime ministers and the commanders of the defence forces of the two countries. However, Lauri Sutela, Finland’s Chief of Defence, was unable to come, because Kekkonen was opposed to the meeting, Vahlquist writes. There was no mention of such a meeting in the Kekkonen diaries, which were edited for publication by Juhani Suomi.
Koivisto brought with him his political secretary Paavo Lipponen. On Thursday Koivisto did not want to comment on Vahlquist’s version of the events. Lipponen did not answer messages sent to him.
The trip to the northernmost reaches of Swedish Lapland was made by plane, car, and helicopter. The venue of the meeting was a cabin of the Swedish Defence Forces, just ten kilometres from the point where the Finnish, Swedish, and Norwegian borders converge.
The meeting was apparently a congenial one. Koivisto said to Vahlquist that Fälldin was his "best friend in Sweden". according to Fälldin, the two men "got along together very well".
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 23.11.2007
KARI HUHTA / Helsingin Sanomat
kari.huhta@hs.fi
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| 27.11.2007 - THIS WEEK |
 Prime Minister Koivisto held secret security policy discussions with Sweden in 1980 |
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