860D.00/1–2545: Telegram
The Secretary of Mission in Finland (Higgs)1 to the Secretary of State
[Received 9:36 p.m.]
16. Chief of Protocol2 of Foreign Office having indicated to me that Prime Minister3 would be pleased to receive me, I called by appointment on Mr. Paasikivi yesterday. He asked what my impressions of Finland were at this time. I replied I did not feel that I had yet been here long enough to form any conclusions and that I accordingly should appreciate his describing the situation for me from his point of view.
He said that at the present time there were two principal questions for Finland, namely: (1), the “internal” question of treatment of war criminals and related persons and (2), the “international” question of importation of raw materials necessary for Finnish production to carry out reparation stipulations of the armistice agreement.4 He said that the first question in fact had two subdivisions: (1), war criminals proper and (2), war culprits, that is, politicians who had been advocates of the Finnish war policy since 1941. He said Finnish Government had arrested some 100 odd Finns whose names had been furnished it by the Control Commission and who would be tried as war criminals but that there seemed to be no particular difficulty about this category of persons.
Regarding war culprits he said Finland was a democratic country with a democratic constitution and laws which during coming election would provide all sections of the population equal opportunity [Page 599] to choose their representatives for democratic government and hence at same time to disavow actions of those responsible for Finnish war policies by refusing to reelect them. He said that any other method of removing these politicians from the Finnish political scene would not be in accordance with democratic processes, as there was no “paragraph” under which they could be tried, and no government of which he was head would proceed against them in the absence thereof. He emphasized in this connection that he himself had never agreed with those war policies but that he had no intention of deviating from what he considered legal and democratic means of dealing with “war politicians”.5 I asked him if he had read recent article in Svenska Dagbladet6 to the effect that it would be a great political mistake on Finland’s part to leave “war politicians” in power regardless of legal obstacles to taking any action against them. He said he had and that he agreed in principle but that in any event he felt that influence of these persons was greatly exaggerated as their number did not exceed five or six and they themselves now admitted their policies had been wrong and that they were presently working wholeheartedly for fulfillment of armistice agreement and better relations with the USSR. He said that the Control Commission had made it clear that it did not intend to interfere in “internal” Finnish affairs and that he considered this an “internal” matter. Answering my inquiry he said agitation for prosecution of “war culprits” came from extreme left wing Finnish politicians but he evaded my question whether he thought they had had any outside inspiration.
Regarding point 2 the Prime Minister pointed out that under present circumstances Finland had communications only with Sweden and was thus completely dependent upon that country for raw materials essential for fulfillment of reparations provisions of armistice. He indicated that supplies from Sweden could be obtained in generally satisfactory amounts during next 6 months or so but thereafter Finland would have to look to the United States. Like the Foreign Minister7 he did not at any time mention an American loan. My remarks to him as to imports from the United States, particularly since he also stressed need of ships plates, were almost identical to those I made to Foreign Minister (see my 11 to Department January 20, 11 p.m.8). I inquired if his Government had surveyed possibility of importing ships plates and other products from Britain after V–day, remarking it had occurred to me that perhaps they had [Page 600] done so in connection with discussions recently begun here with timber delegation from the United Kingdom. He replied negatively and with such surprise it was evident such an idea had never occurred to his Government.
My impression of the Prime Minister was of a quite elderly and somewhat feeble gentleman with strong moral and legal conceptions but basically with a rather clear though perhaps unspoken idea of the realistic factors for Finland involved in the present situation. I felt he seemed generally less disheartened and beaten in attitude than the Foreign Minister.
Sent to Department as my 16 and repeated to Stockholm as my 7, January 25, 3 p.m.
- L. Randolph Higgs was appointed Secretary of Mission in Finland on December 6, 1944, and he arrived in Helsinki on January 16, 1945. For documentation respecting the reestablishment of the United States mission in Finland, see pp. 624 ff.↩
- Johannes A. Nyyssonen.↩
- Juho K. Paasikivi.↩
- For text of the armistice agreement between the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and Finland of September 19, 1944, see British and Foreign State Papers, vol. cxlv, p. 513.↩
- In telegram 134, March 27, 10 a.m., the U.S. Representative in Finland (Hamilton) stated that Paasikivi in a press statement reaffirmed his intention “to abide strictly by Finnish constitutional procedures in any prosecution of war criminals and others.” (860d.00/3–2745)↩
- A Swedish newspaper published in Stockholm.↩
- Carl J. A. Enckell.↩
- Post, p. 626.↩