End of an Era

Kekkonen quits the presidency

There was only one item on the agenda last week as seven Finnish Cabinet members gathered in emergency session in Helsinki's Government House: acceptance of a resignation letter written in the shaky hand of President Urho Kaleva Kekkonen, 81, a victim for the past few years of progressive hardening of the arteries. Although inevitable, Kekkonen's departure still shocked many of the 4.8 million Finns, who cannot remember any other presidential figure than the tall, bald, once athletic man who has guided Finland since 1956.

As best he could, Kekkonen worked out a way for Finland to exist in the looming shadow of the neighboring Soviet Union. Said Acting Prime Minister Eino Uusitalo following the resignation: "The Finns have felt the security of his long experience and cool judgment in both foreign and internal problems."

The oldest head of state in Europe, Kekkonen governed Finland for well over a third of its 63 years of independence and was a power in the life of his country for nearly half a century. He was the father of a peculiarly Finnish policy that he dubbed "active neutrality" and that his critics scorned as "Finlandization." In essence, Kekkonen blended Finland's foreign policy with Moscow's, endorsing a Soviet-promoted nuclear-free zone in Scandinavia, refusing to criticize the invasion of Afghanistan and keeping silent on Soviet human rights abuses in Eastern Europe. In turn, Moscow allowed Finland autonomy on most internal affairs, although quietly insisting that the Communist-dominated Finnish People's Democratic League be included in government coalitions. Kekkonen's supporters insist that he alone was able to work out a relationship with Moscow that kept his country from simply being absorbed by its neighbor. "We have managed our own affairs," Kekkonen once said. "We are satisfied with the result."

Kekkonen knew from experience the perils of direct confrontation with the Soviet bear, who stares at Finland across 788 miles of common border. Born the eldest son of a forestry worker, the man who became a lawyer and national high-jump champion was Interior Minister during the Winter War of 1939-40. Finland, after resisting valiantly, was eventually overwhelmed in that conflict by the Soviet Union, which seized 17,640 square miles of territory and evicted 12% of Finland's population. Following Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, Finland sided with Nazi Germany against Moscow and was forced to pay more than $300 million in reparations to the Soviets after a second crushing defeat.

As early as 1943, Kekkonen suggested that Finnish welfare depended on "neighborly relations with the hereditary enemy" in Moscow. His line was picked up by Kekkonen's presidential predecessor, Juho Kusti Paasikivi, who made it the basis of Finnish postwar neutrality after the Soviets forced a special "friendship treaty" on Finland in 1948. Kekkonen served five times as Paasikivi's Prime Minister in shaky coalition governments from 1950 to 1956.

When Kekkonen finally took over as President, he added an intensely personal dimension to the policy. Making as many as four trips to Moscow a year, he went hiking, shooting and fishing with Soviet leaders, downing Volgas of vodka in the process, and invited them back to Helsinki for more of the same. One of his favorite tactics at home was to invite the Soviets for naked, sweaty talks in a roasting Finnish sauna.

After his initial presidential victory, Kekkonen's three re-elections were never seriously contested. Moscow even pressured the Finnish parliament into adding four extra years to Kekkonen's third six-year term as a price for allowing the country to work out a preferential trade agreement with the European Community. In 1980, Moscow awarded Kekkonen the Lenin Peace Prize for successfully arranging the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe that produced the 1975 Helsinki accords, which recognized Soviet domination in Eastern Europe.

In January, Finland's 300-member electoral college will choose Kekkonen's successor. The likely candidates include the popular Acting President, Mauno Koivisto, 57, Kekkonen's last Prime Minister, and ex-Foreign Minister Ahti Karjalainen, 58. The Soviet Union has expressed no preferences in the contest. There is no need to. Whoever is elected is expected to be bound by the precedents of Kekkonen and the harsh realities of geography, and thus follow a foreign policy line that will be approved in Moscow.

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