Soviets spied on Finnish Embassy communications in 1970-1972

New book describes turbulent decade at Foreign Ministry

print this

Soviet intelligence officials gained access to all coded transmissions between the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Finnish Embassy in Moscow between 1970 and 1972.
      The snooping took place with the help of a device installed inside a Finnish telex machine, which had probably been installed while it was being delivered by courier post from Finland to Moscow.
     
The device was found, but only a small circle of people, including Foreign Ministry intelligence experts, as well as Prime Minister Kalevi Sorsa (SDP) and President Urho Kekkonen, were aware of it.
      The spying by telex came out in the latest installment of a history of the Finnish Foreign Ministry by Professor Timo Soikkanen, which will be published on Tuesday. The book covers the years 1970 to 1981.
      “In those times Finland was working on many foreign policy projects. With the help of the device the Soviets were able to read all information sent from the Embassy in Moscow, and all those that were sent here”, Professor Soikkanen says.
     
In the 1970s the Finnish Foreign Ministry underwent an extensive transition. Issues to contend with included how to respond to the downplaying of Finnish neutrality by the Soviet Union, the Nordek project, aimed at establishing a joint Nordic economic zone, the EEC treaty, attempts to get veteran diplomat Max Jakobson named Secretary General of the UN, arguing against claims of Finlandisation around the world, and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
      “Never were there as great and as significant issues to be dealt with in Finnish foreign policy as there were in the early 1970s. We failed in some of the projects, but in the CSCE we were successful”, Soikkanen says.
     
The powers of the Finnish President were at their highest in the 1970s. The civil service was politicised, with officials with backgrounds in the Centre Party and the Social Democrats manoeuvring for power in the Foreign Ministry.
      The authoritarian institution, a throwback to previous decades, began to improve the positions of their employees.
      Ambassadors found that they had less power over their staff, pay differences were narrowed, and gender equality improved; spouses of ambassadors, who had previously amounted to free labour at Finnish embassies, became more assertive.
      The first training course for international affairs, arranged in 1970, turned into a farce, because it was dominated by members of the radical left. Some of the participants, such as present MEP Esko Seppänen, did not really want to join the Foreign Ministry.
      From the present point of view, some of the most exotic information in the book includes revelations of the drinking haibts ministry officials, and the ministers themselves.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Among friends - Finnish-Soviet treaty in retrospect (6.4.2008)
  Aamulehti: Historians call for thorough examination of Finlandisation era (8.10.2007)

Helsingin Sanomat