Blackmail in Scandinavia

...To justify negotiations with Finland, Russia has invoked the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual assistance proposed by Stalin and signed by Vyacheslav Molotov in 1948...

...This would turn the Baltic Sea into a "lake of peace" as insidiously defined and persistently advocated by Russia's propagandists...

...The Western shore, held by neutral but strongly armed Sweden, and the shores of the outlets into the Kattegat and the North Sea, held by Denmark and Norway, would all be demilitarized...

...Russia, it is understood, has even given Finland new assurances in this sense, but the crux is: How does Russia define neutrality...

...Khrushchev, while brandishing the sword, will therefore think well before he lets it fall...

...In practice it would mean that the USSR would maintain unimpaired all its bases running down the Eastern and Southern shores of the Baltic from Leningrad through Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and East Germany as far as the West German border...

...Since many people in Norway and Denmark still bitterly remember the German occupation and many in Sweden fear any Russian advance into the Baltic, the arguments will not fall on deaf ears...

...In Norway an anti-German group within the ruling Social Democratic party, advocating disarmament and withdrawal from NATO, broke away, formed its own party—the Socialist Opposition party—and won two seats in the general election last September...

...Any stationing of Soviet troops on Finnish territory or any radical interference with Finland's independence would revive these fears, tighten the bonds between Denmark and Norway and their West German allies, strengthen the Swedish military leaders' arguments for tactical nuclear weapons and, possibly, drive Sweden into NATO...

...Thomas Harris is a correspondent for the London Daily Telegraph...

...In Denmark the new Socialist People's party, which is vociferously antiGerman and advocates neutrality and total disarmament for Denmark, holds 11 of the Parliament's 175 seats...

...But even more people in the North still remember Russian aggression in the Baltic...

...This would swing the balance of power in the Baltic sharply against Russia...

...The Unilateralist anti-German organizations in Sweden, Norway and Denmark now have the additional argument that unless the Baltic Sea is "pacified," as Khrushchev advocates, Russia will be forced to push her Baltic outposts westward and tighten its hold on Finland in pure self-defense against Germany's growing might...

...With these nations, Stalin negotiated joint defense measures, secured bases under the shield of which the Communists seized power and thereafter maneuvered their countries into the Soviet Union as federated Republics...

...The blackmail is new but the conditions for it have been growing in Scandinavia for over a year...

...These organizations have been mushrooming and now dwarf the Communist-run Swedish Peace Committee...

...Across the border in neutral Sweden, there are pacifist organizations similar to those in Denmark and Norway...

...Does it mean that it shall continue to exclude Communists from its Government although they are the largest Party in Parliament...

...Sweden is strongly bound to Finland by ties of common history, kinship and mutual interest...

...Most dangerous of all, does it mean that the sword may fall unless the Finnish Government seeks to influence the Swedish Government away from tactical nuclear arms or any other measure likely to strengthen Sweden's defenses against any invasion from the East...

...The Social DemocraticRadical coalition Government, while unswervingly loyal to NATO as a whole, is uneasy about the new Danish-German joint Baltic command...

...By invoking Stalin's treaty for the first time since it was signed 13 years ago, Khrushchev has now seized the sword...

...Likewise, any warnings to Sweden that, say, the stationing of nuclear weapons in Norwegian or Danish territory might provoke a Russian move in Finland would have to be passed on by Stockholm to Oslo and Copenhagen...

...President Kekkonen in his sincere and moving speech warned the Finnish nation (and perhaps Nikita Khrushchev, too) that he would resign if he could not maintain Finland's neutrality...

...RUSSIA'S DAMOCLES SWORD Blackmail in Scandinavia By Thomas Harris Helsinki Why has Russia asked Finland to negotiate on joint defense measures against a threatened attack from West Germany...

...Article 2 has been widely regarded throughout Scandinavia as the sword of Damocles suspended by Stalin over Finland's head...

...They accept Russia's thesis that West Germany is a menace in the Baltic and that Sweden should disarm and rely on the United Nations...

...Any warning by a non-Communist Finnish Government that, for example, tactical nuclear weapons for Sweden could mean satellite status for Finland would have to be carefully examined in Stockholm...

...Does it mean that it will not be induced to link its radar with Russia's warning system or to agree that, should war break out, its armed forces shall automatically be placed under a joint FinnishRussian command...

...More than 500 Estonians whom Sweden has agreed to receive and eventually to naturalize cannot obtain permits to leave the country from the puppet Estonian Government...

...Finnish President Urko Kekkonen confirmed this when he said in a recent broadcast that Russia had made no claims for bases on Finland's territory and still respected its neutrality...

...The present balance of power in the Baltic region would thus be tipped over to Russia's advantage...

...The answer seems to be that Nikita Khrushchev, beset perhaps by his bellicose Chinese partner and recalcitrants in his own Party, has decided to exploit a defenseless Finland in an attempt to blackmail Scandinavia into disarmed neutrality...

...This is the Russian bluff the NATO powers must call and the blackmail Finland must resist...

...This was a small success, but it did not break the absolute majority which the proWestern, moderate Social Democrats have enjoyed for 12 years...

...Does it mean that Finland may not only remain outside the Warsaw Pact but also continue to recognize neither West Germany nor East Germany...

...In a spirit of "it hurts me more than you," he is creating the impression that he will have to bring it down on Finland's head unless Denmark and Norway break their NATO alliance with Germany, and Sweden reverts to a "true neutrality...

...This interesting phrase, it has been made clear, means Sweden's disarming and, above all, refraining from equipping its armed forces with tactical atomic weapons, as the country's military experts advocate and as its Government hesitates, for political reasons, to do...

...Riga in Latvia and Tallin in Estonia, which used to be as accessible to Scandinavians as Dieppe and Dover are to Britain, cannot now be reached without visas issued by the Russian Embassies in Stockholm, Copenhagen or Oslo...

...Article 2 stipulates that Finland and Russia shall "confer with each other if it is established that the threat of an armed attack by West Germany or any state allied with her is present...

...Many feel it gives Russia the opportunity to absorb Finland by the same means as Stalin used to annex Russia's other Baltic neighbors: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania...

...In these countries, the benefits of having nuclear arms on the spot and thus immediately available, as NATO has suggested, would have to be carefully weighed against the strategic disadvantages of any Russian advance...

...This question is being asked anxiously in Finland and perplexedly abroad...

...All this is an ambitious policy, but Russia has had every encouragement to embark on it from unilateralist movements in Sweden, Denmark and Norway, and from warring party factions in Finland...

...Fear of Russia, acute in the Stalinist era, has been lulled but not removed by Khrushchev's coexistence policy...

...War-mutilated Finland had to cede onetwelfth of her territory to Russia...