201. Editorial Note
On December 10, President Kekkonen delivered a nationwide address to the Finnish people. His comments regarding Western offers of loans or other forms of economic assistance to Finland read as follows:
“We have been given in the press of many western countries and also in other ways good advice as to what we should do. We have been promised aid and support, as it is said, against a bad day. I wish to point out to these givers of advice that we must in the end and with our own power take care of our own foreign policy. We have done so until now and will do so also in the future. Just that circumstance, that we have since the war managed our delicate foreign relations by ourselves, has given us recognition abroad. Certainly we need all moral support and all economic assistance falling outside the realm of political speculation which we can get, and we pay our loans to the last penny. But politically our position is permanently determined. Every intervention from outside, however well intended, will be rejected from our side because it damages us. I have said to foreign newspapermen that no country should wish to impair Finn-Soviet relations because that would mean no material damage to the USSR and no gain to any other state, and it would not in the least help Finland–rather the contrary.” (Telegrams 285 and 286 from Helsinki, December 10 and 11; Department of State, Central Files, 660E.61/12–1058 and 660E.61/12–1158)