860D.00/1126: Telegram
The Chargé in Finland ( McClintock ) to the Secretary of State
[Received 12:50 p.m.]
242. Tikander84 yesterday spent two and half hours with Paasikivi85 who described in detail his negotiations with Molotov and Stalin before and after Winter War. Paasikivi seemed to be completely assured that he could negotiate compromise peace with Soviet [Page 235] Government. However, he emphasized that public opinion in Finland was not yet ripe for this change and accordingly he felt Ryti would be best interim President.86 He inferred clearly that when time became propitious he himself would welcome Presidency identifying his candidacy with a policy of rapprochement with Russia. Like many others he seemed to regard Ryti as “expendable”.
Paasikivi seemed to think that Mannerheim’s candidacy87 was being pushed on theory that Mannerheim was best qualified to bring about rapprochement with Great Britain as if this were more important than influencing official opinion in Washington. He agreed with all observers that Ryti was sufficiently opportunistic to stand with any side either for his own or derivatively Finland’s good.
- Wuho Tikander↩
- Juho K. Paasikivi, Finnish industrial financier, who was the last Minister of Finland to the Soviet Union (1940–41) prior to the outbreak of war.↩
- A national election for the Presidency of Finland was to be held on February 15, 1943; on that day the electoral college reelected President Ryti by a vote of 269 out of 300.↩
- On election day, February 15, Helsinki newspapers published a message from Marshal Mannerheim declining a nomination as candidate for President which had been made by Agrarian Party electors, and stating: “I have not given my consent to this candidature about which I had not been asked.”↩