Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume XVI, Eastern Europe; Cyprus; Greece; Turkey

224. Memorandum From the Finnish Embassy to the Department of State⁰

Washington, June 14, 1962.

MEMORANDUM

The President of Finland, with reference to the conversation between the Secretary of State and the Finnish Ambassador on May 28th,¹ wishes to draw the attention of the Secretary of State to the following:

1. The Secretary of State, judging by the questions he put to the Ambassador, appeared to assume that Finland might have accepted such commitments or obligations as would limit her independence. This is not the case. No such demands were made by the Soviet Government either at the meeting at Novosibirsk or on any other occasion, and no commitments or agreements, secret or public, have been made on behalf of Finland. The President of the Republic has no powers to enter into agreements without the consent of the Government and the Parliament. Thus no change has taken place in Finland’s ability to pursue her policy of neutrality or in her relationships with other powers. The developments since the meeting at Novosibirsk have in fact confirmed this.

2. The initiative taken by the Finnish Government for the purpose of acquiring defensive guided missiles is not a result of the Finnish-Soviet exchanges of last fall in which this matter was not even touched upon. The acquisition of such missiles has been the aim of Finnish military authorities for several years. It may also be recalled that the President of Finland raised this matter in his talks with Prime Minister Macmillan in May 1961.

3. The Secretary of State asked the Ambassador how it could be explained that the Soviet Government, at the end of October last year, considered military consultations with Finland necessary and yet almost a month later agreed to put them off. No definitive reply to this question can be given from the Finnish side. We have no knowledge of how the Soviet Government viewed the European situation in the light of the Berlin crisis at different stages in the course of last fall. The note addressed to Finland on October 30th, 1961, should not, however, be considered as an isolated event. It was only one of several Soviet measures, the necessity of which was explained by the Soviet Government on the grounds of the danger of war created by the Berlin crisis. Similarly the proposal to initiate military consultations with Finland was withdrawn at a time when Soviet policy on the German question appeared to change. The fact that the Soviet Government at the end of November no longer considered military consultations with Finland necessary was thus entirely in line with the development of Soviet policy in general.

4. Naturally the Soviet note to Finland may have had several objectives. It has been suggested that one purpose, perhaps the most important, was to influence the Finnish Presidential election. There is no doubt that the note and the exchanges following it could not fail to have an influence on the course of Finnish politics on the eve of the election. If this was indeed the purpose of the Soviet Government, the intention could not, however, have been to bring about a change in Finnish policy, but rather to prevent any possible change. In any case the result of the Presidential election confirmed the continuity of the conduct of Finland’s foreign policy, while the results of the Parliamentary elections made it possible to form a coalition government based on the majority secured by the non-socialist parties in Parliament.

0. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 760.E5612/6–1462. Secret. A typewritten notation reads: “Confidential (Finnish Classification)”. The memorandum was handed to Secretary Rusk by Ambassador Seppala during a June 14 meeting. A memorandum of their conversation is ibid.
1. See Document 222.