The F

The story read like a satire on all tales of international intrigue -- Scandinavian division. There were hidden arms, Arab plotters and midnight sleuthing. There was a strutting, self-styled Fuhrer with plans to overthrow the Swedish government and liquidate the country's top Jews. And, finally, there was a Jewish informant who had no trouble infiltrating the neo-Nazis, since he had a habit of making anti-Semitic remarks and parading about in Arab dress. Yet for all its zaniness, the expose that was splashed across the front page of the Swedish newspaper Expressen for two weeks became the talk of the nation.

The story began when Reporters Karl Gustav Michanek, 55, and Eric Sjoquist, 39, published a series on a secret right-wing group that called itself St. Michael's Order. The day the first installment appeared Michanek received an anonymous letter suggesting that there was much more information to be had about St. Michael's. The mysterious tipster turned out to be a Swedish Jew, Goran Granquist, 25, who had wormed his way into the order and wanted to tell all. He proceeded to give the pair of reporters enough tantalizing leads to start them on a two-month job of night-and-day sleuthing.

Loaded with Evidence. They paid four midnight visits to the neo-Nazis' secret headquarters in downtown Stockholm. Working by flashlight, they photo graphed documents, photos, anti-Semitic tracts, Nazi flags, busts of Hitler, small arms. On one visit they were startled by what sounded like a footstep. They bolted for the piano in the office, started banging out the Nazi Horst Wessel song and singing lustily. But the noise turned out to be the minute hand of a big clock, which had stuck momentarily, then was released with a thump.

Loaded with evidence and about to spring their story, the reporters were worried that the would-be Fuehrer Bjoern Lundahl, 30, might be wise to them. They sent him a phony message, urging him to travel to a town near the Finnish border where he would meet agents who would take him to Cairo. The Fuehrer complied. While he was gone, the reporters handed in their stories; the paper notified the police. "They couldn't believe their ears," said Expressen Editor Per Wrigstad.

War Against Israel. Scooping all other Swedish papers as well as the police, the expose revealed that Lundahl, who also belongs to the U.S. Ku Klux Klan, had been negotiating for some time with the United Arab Republic. He had asked for Egyptian arms, with which a prospective 1,000 Nazi followers would seize Stockholm. In return, Lundahl promised to confiscate all Jewish property in Sweden, execute important Jews, and provide the U.A.R. with 5,000 troops in a war against Israel.

Other Swedish papers belittled the expose; one went so far as to speculate that it might be an "unfunny practical joke." But it was no laughing matter to the government. While admitting that the Nazi peril had been exaggerated by Expressen, the government nevertheless charged Lundahl with "armed threat against lawful order," an offense that could jail him for ten years. Meanwhile Granquist, for fear of his life, fled to Israel, where the newspapers were giving the story almost as big a play as the Swedish press.

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