Confidence in Helsinki

Finland's President Risto Ryti, opening the Parliament's 1943 session last week, clearly indicated that he no longer counts on Axis victory. All that he had left to count on was the hope that Britain and the U.S. would save Finland from the Russians.

Declared President Ryti: "Decisive battles . . . may already be in progress. . . . The World War seems to be reaching its climax and surprises are likely to occur. . . . Civilized nations cannot sink so deep that they will not acknowledge every people's legitimate right to life and liberty. Therefore we may still look forward with confidence."

Secretary of State Cordell Hull said that U.S. Minister H. F. Arthur Schoenfeld would "probably" return to Helsinki (he came home recently to report, presumably on shenanigans like the reported toast of Finnish Government leaders to the successful Jap attack on Pearl Harbor). But the indications that the U.S. intended to continue its formal relations with the Finns did not mean that the Allies would or could keep Russia out of Finland. Britain is at war with Finland. British and American troops, even if they were on the Continent by the time the Russians moved on the Finnish frontier, would hardly fight the Red Army in order to save Field Marshal Baron Carl Gustaf Mannerheim's Government.

Field Marshal Mannerheim reportedly had asked the American Legation in Helsinki to find out whether his well-known hatred of the Soviet Union would be a bar to a negotiated peace. To this feeler, the Russians apparently were as cold as Russian winter.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.