Security Police history: President decided whom to prosecute for espionage

Book shows how SUPO was also tool of domestic and foreign policy

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“Under the law, you need to prosecute”, said President Urho Kekkonen in 1981, thus sealing the fate of a spy working on behalf of the East German intelligence agency Stasi.
      “Take it under investigation”, said President Mauno Koivisto in 1982, when asked what should done about a Finn suspected of working on behalf of the Soviet Union.
      Such statements, which showed how blurred the separation of powers of the different branches of government used to be, are from a new history of the Finnish Security Police SUPO, Ratakatu 12 (the name refers to the street address in Helsinki of SUPO headquarters), written by historian Kimmo Rentola.
      The book, which marks the 60th anniversary of the organisation, reveals that SUPO was used as a tool of both foreign and domestic policy by presidents Kekkonen and Koivisto a greater degree than had previously been known.
     
Kekkonen would decide on SUPO funding, the filling of posts in the organisation the distribution of intelligence information, the deportation of defectors, and even the prosecutionof Finns caught for espionage.
      Legislative changes affecting SUPO were also examined in advance by SUPO director Seppo Tiitinen and President Koivisto.
      A change in a more parliamentary direction took place in March 1989, when Koivisto took up the issue of expulsions of Soviet spies. “They should be police matters”, said Koivisto to Tiitinen.
      After that, decisions on deportations could be made by the minister of the interior, the prime minister and the foreign minister.
     
The process by which SUPO became closely linked with the president was a gradual one. By the early 1960s, Kekkonen had sought to concentrate the distribution of intelligence information on himself. The choice of the 30-year-old Seppo Tiitinen to head SUPO in 1978 guaranteed that the organisation would remain closely under his control.
      Reports on sensitive speeches by Soviet leaders were drafted by SUPO as single copies for President Kekkonen’s eyes only.
     
Kekkonen also used SUPO in domestic politics - mainly to spy on the Finnish Communist Party. SUPO had a number of informers inside the party, and files were kept on leftist figures.
      Names were collected from any number of sources, including appeals and petitions, which were sometimes submitted to the Security Police by representatives of the pacifist organisation, the Committee of 100, just to annoy SUPO.
      Keeping files on Finnish communists was a big part of SUPO work for 33 years. It started in 1949 by Minister of the Interior Aarre Simonen, and ended with a decision that emerged in a discussion between Tiitinen and President Koivisto in August 1982.
      Rentola sees that the meeting as a milestone in SUPO history: it was seen as the end of the danger of a possible communist coup in Finland.
     
SUPO remained under presidential control to a large extent for 30 years (1959-1989), which is about half of the history of the organisation. Its special position as a presidential tool faded away when Aaro Kekomäki took on the leadership of SUPO in November 1990.
      Today, President Tarja Halonen and SUPO director Ilkka Salmi meet once or twice a year to discuss official matters.
     
Rentola’s book concludes with the end of the Cold War in 1991. After this, SUPO ws left with little supervision for nearly 15 years.
      It was not until 2005 that National Police Commissioner Markku Salminen started a practice under which the head of SUPO would report to him on a monthly basis.
      The Ministry of the Interior also started to monitor SUPO’s secret intelligence gathering methods after the secret police had been caught illegally acquiring telecommunications information from the telecom operator Sonera.

More on this subject:
 Russian diplomat in Helsinki served as head of KGB assassination section
 Ahtisaari suspected by KGB of ties with Estonian refugees in New York

Previously in HS International Edition:
  Security Police evaluated Finns’ intelligence and sex habits (3.1.2009)
  Security Police open older archives (2.1.2008)

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