HELSINGIN SANOMAT
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26.8.2008 - THIS WEEK
COMMENTARY: Fears of Soviet invasion in August and September 1968
By Ilkka Malmberg
In the stands at the Olympic Stadium, during the annual Finnkampen athletics meet between Finland and Sweden, the rumour started to go around: hundreds of Soviet tanks had appeared behind the border, ready to attack.
The Kymi Jaegers were in position to the east of Hamina ready to repulse an assault.
In Lappeenranta, Finland’s own tanks had been moved up to the border zone.
It was the last week of August in 1968. Czechoslovakia had been invaded and occupied just over a week earlier.
The news from Prague unsettled the Finns mightily.
The eternal fear raised its head once more.
......
Back in Helsinki, the ship of state tried to hold its course. The government expressed its sadness at the occupation of Czechoslovakia and hoped for a peaceful outcome. It promised to monitor developments carefully. There was no overt criticism of the Soviet moves.
Deep depression had overtaken President Urho Kekkonen.
”Why the hell did I have to go and agree to stand for re-election? Now I’d be a free man to say what I think”, Kekkonen wrote in his diary.
.....
In any event, the rumour-mill had to be stopped somehow.
The then Prime Minister Mauno Koivisto and his Foreign Minister Ahti Karjalainen called in the editors-in-chief of the largest daily newspapers and warned them against jumping to overly hasty conclusions.
Karjalainen stressed that the occupation in Czechoslovakia was not having an effect on bilateral relations with the eastern neighbour, and he warned against stirring things up on the foreign policy front.
....
Another who learnt at the time that one did not go antagonising a superpower just like that was a 21-year-old summer reporter with YLE named Paavo Väyrynen (yes, that Väyrynen, later the chairman of the Centre Party and long-serving Foreign Minister).
Väyrynen had been making a radio report of the demonstrations outside the Soviet Embassy on Tehtaankatu, and had interviewed people taking part in the protest.
But the piece was never aired.
“There was talk that the Ministry of the Interior had phoned the newsdesk”, recalls Väyrynen with some ironic amusement.
“They probably didn’t want to have it told just how large the demonstration was. Or what the mood on the street was like.” .....
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