Growing Swedish outrage

Long before the Vietnam War consumed the world’s attention, Olof Palme questioned its morality. The US dollar may have also backed the Swedish krona, but his concerns transcended monetary considerations. When Palme, as minister without portfolio, addressed the issue in 1965, he saw the popular Vietnamese struggle as part of a broader colonial fight for liberation in Asia and Africa: ‘We must learn to live with it and perhaps also for it.’¹³ Yet, once he became Prime Minister, Palme conducted a delicate balancing act. While he actively opposed the US intervention in Vietnam, he strove to maintain a relationship with Washington. When he visited the United States in June 1970, his criticism of the war was measured and cautious. ‘You say that the people of Vietnam should have had the opportunity for self-determination,’ an interviewer noted on The Today Show, a programme on the NBC television network. ‘Do you think they would have that opportunity if the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong took over’?¹⁴ Palme began in a hesitant fashion: ‘It’s very difficult to say. We can’t speak of democracy in the same way as we do in our countries’.¹⁵ The Prime Minister, however, did go on to explicitly state: ‘Only that I think the NLF [National Liberation Front], to a large extent, has represented the national aspirations of the Vietnamese people’.¹⁶

Palme employed his rhetoric, polite though it was, as an expression of official Swedish neutrality. He opposed the Vietnam War for its violation of Vietnamese self-determination. Superpower aggression against one small country threatened all the others. Addressing his American audience during his June 1970 visit, Palme said: ‘The superpowers are in a position to destroy themselves, but in so doing they will destroy the others. But the small nations cannot escape being affected by their actions. This is why the small nations would like to have a word in the councils’.¹⁷ On that same trip, Palme also said: ‘When we express opinions on different questions they are based on our own independent judgment. This is fully compatible with a foreign policy based on strict neutrality as far as national security is concerned’.¹⁸

Toward the end of 1972, Hanoi was subjected to terror from the air. Starting on Friday 6 October, the United States attacked the North Vietnamese capital with a particular ferocity that did not end until Monday 9 October. Ambassador Jean-Christophe Öberg survived a relatively close call on that first day. ‘During Friday’s raids an American missile was fired, which is said to be the type known as the “Shrike”,¹⁹ toward the city centre and claimed twenty-six dead and injured,’ Öberg reported. ‘The missile fell less than 300 meters from the embassy and hit a residential block’.²⁰

Shortly before noon on 12 October, the French diplomatic mission in Hanoi did not prove as fortunate as the Swedish embassy. Even though the French mission was located in a diplomatic area, far from any industrial targets or North Vietnamese government buildings, its residence was all but destroyed in yet another US bombing raid over the North Vietnamese capital. Pierre Susini, the delegate-general, was trapped in the rubble. The Swedish ambassador immediately visited the affected site, even trying to dig Susini out with a shovel. A Vietnamese soldier stopped Öberg, warning him that the bombing could resume. Öberg recounted that, even though he had neglected to bring his helmet:

I remained on the spot until Pierre Susini was dug out and carried away by ambulance. He still was conscious. The day before, he had borrowed a record from me, Mozart’s ‘Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major.’ The theme of Elvira Madigan [a 1967 film by Swedish director Bo Widerberg]. The album cover lay scorched among the ruins. It was unreal, like a dream.²¹

Determined to help in some way, Öberg informed Stockholm via radio of the catastrophe: ‘The French radio connection was broken off. We were suddenly the only link with Western Europe’.²² Quickly getting word, Swedish Foreign Minister Krister Wickman addressed the atrocity before the UN General Assembly in New York that very day.²³ As soon as he could, Öberg made available the Swedish embassy’s own radio system to other members of the French delegation. They reached the French embassy in Stockholm.²⁴ Courtesy of the Swedish embassy in Hanoi, Susini’s deputy could then communicate with his superiors in Paris.²⁵ The Swedish ambassador closely monitored the condition of the comatose Susini, who bore third-degree burns on more than half his body, among other injuries. Against the recommendation of his Vietnamese doctors, who insisted that Susini was in no condition to travel, the delegate-general was flown back to France several days later for additional medical care.²⁶ Susini would die on 19 October in a Lyon hospital.²⁷

Initially, US Secretary of Defence Melvin Laird and Secretary of State William Rogers attempted to blame North Vietnamese anti-aircraft missiles for the bombing of the French delegation’s residence. Öberg had been very intimate friends with Susini, frequently meeting to play tennis together. He had also known Susini’s partner, Aleya, who had been killed instantly.²⁸ Wiring Stockholm as Susini lay dying, the Swedish ambassador bitterly scoffed at Laird’s explanation:

One could maybe begin by asking Defence Secretary Laird how come the Vietnamese civil defense immediately after the direct hit found three additional, undetonated American bombs in the delegation’s immediate vicinity right after the direct hit. One can further ask the American Defense Secretary how he can explain that an additional building in the delegation’s neighborhood was totally destroyed by two American bombs, of which one could be identified.²⁹

Shortly afterward, a French commission of inquiry determined that the bombs did, in fact, come from the United States.³⁰ It was only then that the Americans owned up to their mistake.³¹ The Swedish ambassador’s humanitarianism was duly acknowledged, with French Foreign Minister Maurice Schumann personally thanking the Swedish government for Öberg’s aid after the bombing.³²

In spite of the unofficial agreement reached by National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese diplomat Le Duc Tho in Paris in December of 1972, Nixon ordered the bombing of the North Vietnamese cities of Hanoi and Haiphong shortly before Christmas. Officially known as Linebacker³³ II, since the original Linebacker campaign had taken place earlier that year, the so-called Christmas Bombings lasted from 18 to 27 December. Linebacker II was mainly a signal to the government in Saigon that the US president would maintain his commitment to the regime after the withdrawal of American troops.³⁴ Some 40,000 tons of bombs fell on Hanoi and 15,000 on Haiphong, leaving more than 1,600 people dead.³⁵

Particularly offensive to the Swedes, and to Palme himself, was that the fact that Bach Mai hospital in Hanoi had also been hit. The destruction of the hospital was a blow not only for North Vietnam but for the Swedes as well, given the fact that Sweden had contributed a great deal of aid to it.³⁶ Whether deliberate or not, hospitals were frequently hit in the bombing raids over North Vietnam in 1972. Bach Mai had, in fact, already been damaged in a bombing raid that June as well.³⁷

Outraged, Palme sent a telegram in French to North Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Van Dong: ‘In this moment of new difficult tests for your people I express our sympathy with the victims of the bombings and confirm our solidarity with the demand for a speedy settlement that secures the Vietnamese people’s right to determine their own future’.³⁸ Yet, Palme felt compelled to do more than reassure the North Vietnamese; he had to confront the Americans. Palme, therefore, decided to take a stand. He sought the advice of his Social Democratic counterparts in Austria and West Germany, Bruno Kreisky and Willy Brandt, respectively.³⁹

Palme, Kreisky and Brandt

The three leaders shared strong cultural connections. Palme was a native of Stockholm, but had grown up speaking German with his mother, a progeny of the ethnic German nobility of Latvia.⁴⁰ Both chancellors had close ties to Sweden. Kreisky, an Austrian of Jewish descent and an active socialist, had spent the Second World War in Stockholm. He had obtained a Swedish visa through the efforts of Torsten Nilsson, who was active in the International Socialist Youth, and who would later serve as Palme’s first foreign minister.⁴¹ The German Brandt, also a socialist opponent of the Nazis, had found refuge in Sweden as well as Norway.⁴² The Social Democratic movement in Sweden would shape the political development of the two refugees, whose friendship began there. They also made the acquaintance of the economist Gunnar Myrdal and his wife, the sociologist Alva Myrdal. The Myrdals were leading intellectual lights in the Social Democratic movement.⁴³ As Kreisky observed: ‘In Scandinavia, we not only felt at home … the political ideals that we held coincided with the aims of our Scandinavian friends’.⁴⁴ Brandt later recalled that in ‘Swedish Social Democracy, even more conspicuously than in its Norwegian counterpart, I saw an undogmatic, free, popular, and confident movement’.⁴⁵ Soon after the war, Kreisky returned to Stockholm as the diplomatic representative for Austria. His job was to establish an embassy, but he lacked the money to fulfil it. The Swedish Foreign Ministry covered his expenses with a greatly appreciated loan.⁴⁶ When Kreisky and Brandt got to know Palme in the 1960s, they were already well disposed toward Sweden.⁴⁷

Palme and Brandt both reached the pinnacle of power in October of 1969, and Kreisky would do so the following year. When it came to the Vietnam War, Kreisky and Brandt agreed with Palme. ‘Surprising as it may sound,’ Kreisky reflected later, ‘Olof Palme proved himself to be truly pro-American when by campaigning for an end to the Vietnam conflict he tried to spare the American people a military defeat. Those who thought they had to pursue a policy of strength achieved precisely the opposite’.⁴⁸ Notwithstanding Kreisky’s personal opposition to war, his archive, held in Vienna, contains no record of any public statement against the Christmas Bombings.⁴⁹ Like Sweden, Austria was a neutral country. In contrast to the Swedish policy of non-alignment, which was officially declared but still informal, Austria’s version was officially ratified by the Austrian State Treaty of 1955 and enshrined in the national constitution.⁵⁰ As early as 1959, Kreisky had concluded that Austrian neutrality relied on ‘an international equilibrium … It follows, then, that Austrian foreign policy must always aim to help maintain the balance of power by contributing in all ways possible toward lessening international tensions’.⁵¹ Certainly, Palme’s rhetoric increased international tensions, which the Austrian chancellor sought to avoid. Formal constraints prevented Kreisky from speaking out. Moreover, the Socialist International had given Kreisky the job of attending to the intractable Israeli–Palestine conflict, while Vietnam was officially made Palme’s domain. After the Vietnam War, and once he relinquished office, Kreisky would conclude with remarkable prescience: ‘Never has such an irresponsible and pointless war been fought more than that one, and we do not know if it will be the last’.⁵²

Brandt, for his part, had his own reasons to disapprove of the war. Not only did the West German chancellor suspect that the conflict in Southeast Asia would eventually result in an American military evacuation from Europe, which was a terrifying prospect for him, he also objected to the war on moral grounds. At the same time, Brandt refrained from criticising the Nixon administration directly.⁵³ West Germany, unlike Austria, belonged to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The United States was a guarantor for West Berlin. In addition, Brandt needed Washington’s support for his Ostpolitik, or his policy of rapprochement with East Germany and the rest of Eastern Europe.⁵⁴ According to the minutes of his telephone conversation with Brandt, Palme ‘said that the bombings now involved systematic destruction of a country’, sincerely expressing in private the same sentiments that he would very soon be expressing in public.⁵⁵ The West German chancellor mentioned that he had been in touch with General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev of the Soviet Union, whose reaction to the Christmas Bombings was ‘entirely undramatic’.⁵⁶ Understanding Brezhnev’s muted response, the Swedish Prime Minister observed ‘that Russians clearly were “patient” and that they also were economically dependent on the U.S.A’.⁵⁷ Palme also suspected that Brezhnev believed the American war in Vietnam would somehow exculpate any future Soviet intervention in a Eastern European country.⁵⁸ As for West Germany, the Swedish Prime Minister proposed that Brandt and French President Georges Pompidou ‘propose mediation or at least make a public statement’.⁵⁹ Brandt claimed that his government had already issued a quiet démarche to the Nixon administration, and added that he was thinking about making a public statement. The Swedish Prime Minister promptly reported to Hanoi what the West German chancellor had said.⁶⁰

The Christmas Bombing speech: Palme’s outspokenness, Nixon’s fury

Palme also consulted with his mentor and predecessor, former Prime Minister Tage Erlander, and with the Myrdals. Another advisor, Anders Ferm, wrote a draft of a speech, which the Prime Minister revised in his own words at his own kitchen table at home on the night of 22 December.⁶¹ As evidence of the Prime Minister’s literary contribution, a draft of the speech in Palme’s own handwriting is available at the Labour Movement Archive in Sweden.⁶² ‘It was not an instant reaction,’ Palme later recounted. ‘It was building up inside of me since the bombing resumed. We had many discussions on it over a period of five days or so. And then, that evening, I knew what I had to say about it.’⁶³ The Prime Minister knew what he had to say, even without the counsel of his own Foreign Ministry.⁶⁴ ‘He didn’t ask anybody for permission’, remembered Kai Falkman of the Swedish Foreign Ministry, nor did he ‘gather the government, and said: “Do you think that …?” Then, there would be compromises and he didn’t want that. But he was so strong’.⁶⁵

On 23 December, Palme recorded a speech that was first broadcast on Swedish radio, and then textually transmitted to the international media. He also gave an encore on film for Swedish television. In this speech, Palme dispensed with his customary tact. He had no fear of offending Washington.⁶⁶ ‘We should call things by their proper names,’ Palme began, speaking from the heart. ‘What is going on in Vietnam today is a form of torture.’ North Vietnam was no threat to the United States, so Nixon’s action had no justification at all: ‘People are being punished, a nation is being punished in order to humiliate it, to force it to submit to force’.⁶⁷ He compared the Christmas Bombings to the Jewish Holocaust of the Second World War, the German and Italian bombing of the doomed Spanish town of Guernica in 1937, the 1940 mass execution of Polish officers by the Soviet Union, and the 1960 massacre of black demonstrators in Sharpeville, South Africa. Thus, Palme closed his speech with a roll call of atrocities: ‘Guernica, Oradour, Babi Yar, Katyn, Lidice, Sharpeville, and Treblinka. Now a new name will be added to the list: Hanoi, Christmas 1972’.⁶⁸

The text of the speech arrived at the Washington embassy via telex on Saturday 23 December. As the officer on duty, First Secretary Jan Eliasson found his holiday weekend disturbed: ‘It wasn’t a regular working day. I remember I came to the embassy, and it was not open’.⁶⁹ Once inside, Eliasson examined the telex, and concluded: ‘This is dynamite’.⁷⁰ Swedish Ambasssador Hubert de Besche planned to visit friends in Virginia, but Eliasson realised the situation was urgent. ‘And I called him and said, “Ambassador, I have the sense that you should not leave town”,’ Eliasson recounted, adding: ‘You will have a reaction during the day from someone, I’m sure’.⁷¹ De Besche, therefore, awaited the inevitable summons from the State Department.

Although the reaction from the Nixon administration would come that same day, telegrams from the Swedish embassy in Hanoi gave the Prime Minister no reason to take back what he had said. Chargé d’affaires Eskil Lundberg reported that the bombing raids on 19 and 22 December that had struck Bach Mai hospital had killed one surgeon, fifteen nurses, one pharmacist and six medical students. Three buildings in the medical complex, including the central laboratory, were damaged.⁷² With the rest of the local diplomatic corps, Lundberg soon inspected the damage for himself, which turned out to be even worse than expected: ‘One can conclude that the material damage with regard to the buildings is now total’.⁷³ Visiting the hospital himself two weeks later, Ambassador Öberg concurred with the assessment of his chargé d’affaires. He reported that ‘the destruction there was total, repeat total. Of the buildings that remain none should be used further’.⁷⁴ The ambassador noted that the casualty toll was even higher now, with thirty people dead, including five doctors.⁷⁵ The US president, who could never handle criticism with good grace, was very angry.⁷⁶

True, many Western countries officially criticised the aerial assault on Hanoi and Haiphong. For instance, Mitchell Sharp, Canada’s secretary of state for external affairs and deputy prime minister under the Liberal Pierre Trudeau, stated: ‘We’ve made clear our opposition to bombing and to any escalation of the war’.⁷⁷ The chancellor of West Germany privately described the Christmas Bombings as ‘disgusting and unfathomable’, but for all the encouragement that he had given Palme, Brandt did not officially speak out.⁷⁸ According to Bernd Greiner, the prominent German historian and Americanist:

Brandt never made a public statement – nor did he press the American government behind the scenes, i.e. diplomatically, to speed up the efforts for a cease-fire or peace treaty in Vietnam. He did not even voice any disapproval in private talks with members of the Nixon administration. Whatever misgivings he had, he kept them to himself.⁷⁹

Indeed, I have not found a record of any démarche from Bonn among American records. A spokesman for Brandt merely lamented the lack of a peace agreement in Vietnam, indicating the wish that the peace talks would ‘soon achieve results’.⁸⁰ Brandt did discreetly defend Palme once Swedish–American relations had descended to a new low. Conversing with Kissinger at a Washington dinner, Brandt ‘explained how very much the Swede was a product of his student years in the USA: Palme’s reaction was like that of the younger Americans’.⁸¹ In 1948, Palme had earned a bachelor’s degree at Kenyon College in Ohio.⁸² Later, Brandt attributed his own diplomatic tact to moral guilt:

I thought it was certainly not for us Germans to put ourselves forward as lecturers in international politics and certainly not as moral judges; nor did I feel it advisable to interfere with the American Government in an area it said was vital. Consequently, I swallowed my grave doubts and held my tongue when it might have been better to make my opposition explicit on the one hand, and on the other make open display of my suppressed sympathies.⁸³

The anti-Nazi Brandt had conducted himself impeccably during the Second World War. If any German had the right to make moral judgements, it was Willy Brandt. Yet, even the Socialist Brandt felt obligated to continue Bonn’s non-military aid programme for South Vietnam, a holdover from the Erhard administration.⁸⁴

Not that Palme blamed Brandt for his cautious approach, as veteran Swedish diplomat Rolf Ekéus noted:

Willy Brandt became so important for Sweden, and for Palme, to the end of his life … I think Brandt made clear to Palme that: ‘We, West Germany, cannot be, so to say, not be loyal to the United States … we have the Soviet Union. We have East Germany. We have these crazy guys.’ So one can understand … it was just like a rational fear … I even participated in conversations with Brandt-Palme … one had to be careful. Palme was very, very smart. He understood it absolutely. Absolutely.⁸⁵

Sweden’s Nordic neighbours, Finland and Denmark, also had their say about the 1972 Christmas Bombings. ‘It is especially difficult to understand on what arguments the vast bombardments of the North Vietnam territory have been based’, commented Finnish Foreign Minister Ahti Karjalainen, a political centrist.⁸⁶ Similarly to Austria, an international treaty had established the post-war neutrality of Finland.⁸⁷ Also similarly to Austria, Finland preferred a tone of restraint.⁸⁸ Danish Prime Minister Anker Jørgensen, a left-wing Social Democrat, was naturally more outspoken. That October, Jørgensen had publicly stated, ‘USA out of Indochina!’⁸⁹ In response to the Christmas Bombings, Jørgensen said that prospects for ending the war and for a post-war reconstruction of Vietnam ‘suffered a tragic setback … the parties and particularly the United States assume a heavy responsibility’.⁹⁰ Going further, Jørgensen said that Denmark would ‘ “reconsider” its relationship with NATO’. Denmark retained its NATO membership, of course, and not even Jørgensen conveyed the same passion as Palme did. By then, the Labour party of Harold Wilson had lost power to the Conservatives, with the new Prime Minister, Edward Heath, being supportive of the Christmas Bombings. Speaking to The New York Times the following January, Heath stated: ‘I can’t forget that people were saying the bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong would start World War III – and it didn’t’.⁹¹

The most grateful response to Palme’s speech probably came via telegram from Prime Minister Pham Van Dong of North Vietnam. ‘Thank you very sincerely for your concern during the new escalation of the extremely barbaric war of the United States, and at the same time for your warm support for the Vietnamese people’s just fight’.⁹² Using Ambassador Öberg as an intermediary shortly afterward, Dong not only re-expressed his gratitude to Palme, but extended another invitation to visit Hanoi. ‘He added that no head of government enjoyed such confidence and popularity here as the Swedish prime minister’, Öberg recounted. The North Vietnamese leader also rewarded Palme with a gift, a painting made by a local defence unit.⁹³

For all his compliments for Palme, Dong was not quite so complimentary about French President Georges Pompidou, a political conservative who cared more about cultivating a close relationship with the United States than had his predecessor, de Gaulle. ‘The prime minister offered scathing criticism of Pompidou’s collaborative silence on the Vietnam question’, Öberg wrote. ‘France was more anxious to protect its colonial remnants in South Vietnam than to play an honourable role in Vietnam’.⁹⁴ The late President de Gaulle had removed his country’s air defences and Mediterranean fleet from the NATO command structure, and had forbidden the placement of US tactical nuclear weapons in France.⁹⁵ By 1966, he had decided to remove French forces entirely from the NATO command structure, and expel any foreign military presence from France the following year.⁹⁶ Nevertheless, France had never left NATO and it was membership of NATO, as well as Pompidou’s friendlier attitude toward the United States, that held France back from criticising the Christmas Bombing. After all, both Nixon and Kissinger hoped to create a new ‘special relationship’ with France, for which they regarded Pompidou as the vital linchpin.⁹⁷

West German chancellor Willy Brant had been equally silent, but Dong bore him no ill-will. ‘He said he understood the federal chancellor’s difficulties in speaking publicly in plain language’, the Swedish ambassador informed Palme. ‘Pham Van Dong knows that you were in contact with Brandt during the climax of the bombing right before Christmas’.⁹⁸ The North Vietnamese Prime Minister was therefore aware that Brandt had advised Palme on his Christmas Bombing speech.

Most Western European leaders publicly opposed the continuation of the Vietnam War. The Prime Minister of Sweden felt freer to speak his mind than the rest. His comments stood apart in the comparison he drew between the Christmas Bombings and Nazi atrocities.⁹⁹ In the Second World War, Nixon had served as a naval lieutenant in the Pacific and even though the former logistics officer had faced little danger, and only from the Japanese, the American President now found the comparison with the Nazis impossible to stomach.¹⁰⁰ Kissinger reported that Palme’s reference to the Third Reich was ‘an aching wisdom tooth’ for the President.¹⁰¹ Although my evidence is circumstantial, I would suggest that the Swedish Prime Minister’s words inflicted an even sharper toothache in the mouth of the national security advisor. Nixon had spent much of the Second World War in the South Pacific, but Kissinger, a member of a German-Jewish family, had suffered from direct contact with the Nazi menace. In 1938, he fled with his immediate family to the United States. At least thirteen relatives who had remained behind perished in the Holocaust.¹⁰² During the Second World War, the young refugee then returned to his native land as an intelligence officer in the US Army.¹⁰³ ‘Consciousness that societies can take a very evil turn,’ Kissinger said later. ‘This separates me from many Americans, who have never seen it, can’t imagine it.’¹⁰⁴ Kissinger could have applied that statement to the Swedes. As Kissinger probably saw it, Palme knew nothing of evil – only he did. The overly sensitive Nixon and Kissinger should have realised that the best way to avoid comparisons to Nazis would have been to refrain from committing atrocities themselves. ‘But Kissinger resented all the criticism directed at him’, no matter what the reason, observed the historian Robert Dallek.¹⁰⁵

It is important to remember that Kreisky himself had lost even more relatives to the Holocaust than Kissinger had, over twenty members of his extended family.¹⁰⁶ Despite his own painful personal history, Kreisky never criticised the Swedish Prime Minister’s speech. In a collective letter to Palme and Kreisky written three months before the Christmas Bombings, Brandt had pondered that ‘after Auschwitz and Hiroshima, after Nuremberg and Song My [My Lai], we have just realized the barbarity into which the human being can fall, what strong forces oppose and fight attempts to organize peace and a humane community’.¹⁰⁷ Palme concurred with Brandt, and Kreisky raised no objection.¹⁰⁸

On the very day that Palme delivered his speech, US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs U. Alexis Johnson requested the appearance of Ambassador de Besche at the State Department in Washington at noon. Functioning as Acting Secretary of State, since everybody else was on vacation, Johnson made a statement to the Swedish ambassador that was authorised from the highest level:

I am acting on direct personal instructions of the president. Let me say first, that personally I cannot recall any case of two states with diplomatic and friendly relations, where the chief of government of one state made such outrageous statements with regard to the government of the other state. I cannot recall any statement by the Swedish government about Nazi Germany same as what is now said in regard to the US. The president feels that given the Swedish government’s relations with Nazi Germany, and what he feels was the cooperation, that statement comes with singular ill grace.¹⁰⁹

Obviously, Palme had borne no responsibility for Sweden’s provision of iron ore to Nazi Germany, or the permitted use of its territory for the transport of German troops to occupied Norway. Nixon, on the other hand, did bear direct responsibility for his own policy in Southeast Asia. Therefore, the US President’s comment about Nazi Germany was the one that came with singular ill grace. Concluding his version of a history lesson, Under-Secretary Johnson went on:

The US government, therefore, cannot come to any other conclusion than that the Swedish government attaches very little importance or value to its relations with the US, or the attitude of the US government towards Sweden. In consequence hereof, the charge d’affaires John Guthrie, who is now in the US, will not be returning to Sweden. It is further the view of the US government that it would not be useful for the successor to Ambassador De Besche, who has already got agreement, to come to the US at this time.¹¹⁰

So, Yngve Möller, de Besche’s newly appointed replacement, would not be received in Washington, and John Guthrie, who had come home just for Christmas, would remain in the United States.¹¹¹ Furthermore, US Ambassador Jerome Holland had left Stockholm in August, and Washington would not replace him anytime soon.¹¹² De Besche was understandably incensed: ‘I terminated the conversation by concluding that in the U.S.A., one found Palme’s statement “outrageous” – in Sweden, one found the American bombing “outrageous”’.¹¹³ Stockholm and Washington would not re-establish full diplomatic relations at the ambassadorial level for more than a year.

Conclusion: the significance of Swedish neutrality

In spite of these tensions, it would be a mistake to label the Palme government as anti-American. It was far more pro-American than publicly understood at the time. Historically distrustful of the Soviet Union, Sweden engaged in military collaboration with the United States within Europe.¹¹⁴ Many critics of US foreign policy must have been sorely disappointed by this fact. In spite of this collaboration, Stockholm avoided collaboration with NATO. Sweden sought to preserve its independence by avoiding the US-dominated military organisation. By collaborating with the United States alone, was Sweden still not deferring to American authority? What difference did it make?

As an explanation, Ekéus referred to the concept of the Nordic Balance, with neutral Sweden effectively functioning as a buffer zone between the two blocs.¹¹⁵

More recently, Ekéus noted, Kissinger himself had recommended another buffer zone. In 2014, more than two decades after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the former US Secretary of State endorsed the non-alignment of Ukraine: ‘Far too often the Ukrainian issue is posed as a showdown: whether Ukraine joins the East or the West. But if Ukraine is to survive and thrive, it must not be either side’s outpost against the other – it should function as a bridge between them’.¹¹⁶

Therefore, the former Secretary of State advised Ukraine against seeking official membership in NATO: ‘internationally, they should pursue a posture comparable to that of Finland. The nation leaves no doubt about its fierce independence and cooperates with the West in most fields but carefully avoids institutional hostility toward Russia’.¹¹⁷ In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Kissinger would change his mind. Ekéus may have been critical of the retired American diplomat, but he also believed that Kissinger’s initial thesis was relevant to the rest of Northern Europe:

We should not build a sharp line between NATO and Russia up there, which would totally change the security structure in Europe. And that was, of course, American policy during that time, and our policy also. We should not increase the tension. That meant also that Sweden couldn’t be a base, shouldn’t be a base, for attacks on the Soviet Union, now Russia … So I think that is a policy which is a contribution to stability and peace in Northern Europe … It would be real, serious undermining of European security if we, maybe with the Finns, start to build up a major front, a new front towards Russia.¹¹⁸

During the Cold War, official Swedish neutrality not only provided Northern Europe with a secure buffer zone, it allowed Stockholm greater independence of action in other international matters. Neutral Sweden was not a polite fiction, but something that existed in reality. In the phrasing of international relations scholar Ann-Marie Ekengren, Stockholm exercised a form of ‘flexible neutrality’.¹¹⁹ Regardless of Sweden’s friendship with the United States, the Scandinavian country did not feel obligated to consult with the members of the North Atlantic Alliance before acting. From time to time, the Swedes could even challenge the Western superpower itself, as they did over the war in Vietnam.

Palme’s commitment to socialism, the socialism that he shared with his colleagues Kreisky and Brandt, inspired the construction of his foreign policy. The key principles of that foreign policy were the rule of international law, the development of the Third World, self-determination of smaller countries, and Swedish sovereignty.¹²⁰ But it was the commitment to Swedish neutrality and their shared socialist beliefs that made that foreign policy possible.

Palme’s wartime exchanges with the West German chancellor, conducted entirely in Swedish, proved particularly fruitful.¹²¹ In 1976, one year after the war in Vietnam had ended, Palme would become vice president of the Socialist International, sharing the post with Kreisky and several others. The former Prime Minister, who would eventually return to his post, would then begin to work even more closely with the former chancellor, now chairman of the organisation. But the Palme–Brandt partnership had truly begun during the Vietnam War.¹²²

Notes

1. 1.  Fredrik Logevall, ‘The American Effort to Draw European States into the War’, in La Guerre du Vietnam et l’Europe, ed. Christopher Goscha and Maurice Vaïsse (Brussels: Bruylant, 2003), 4, fn2.

2. 2.  Logevall, ‘The American Effort’, 8; Hubert Zimmerman, ‘The Quiet German: The Vietnam War and the Federal Republic of Germany’, in La Guerre du Vietnam et l’Europe, ed. Goscha and Vaïsse, 53.

3. 3.  John W. Young, ‘British governments and the Vietnam War’, in La Guerre du Vietnam et l’Europe, ed. Goscha and Vaïsse, 122.

4. 4.  Saki Dockrill (2003) ‘The Anglo-US Linkage between Vietnam and the Pound: 1964 and 1968’, in La Guerre du Vietnam et l’Europe, ed. Goscha and Vaïsse, 72; and Young, ‘British governments’, 122, 124. See also Rhiannon Vickers, ‘Harold Wilson, the British Labour Party, and the War in Vietnam’, Journal of Cold War Studies 10, no. 2 (2008). On British opinion of the war, see Sylvia A. Ellis, ‘Promoting Solidarity at Home and Abroad: The Goals and Tactics of the Anti-Vietnam War Movement in Britain’, European Review of History: Revue européenne d’histoire 21, no. 4 (2014).

5. 5.  Transcript of Harold Wilson’s conversation with Olof Palme, 7 April 1970, The National Archives (London), PREM 13/3552 (courtesy of David Prentice).

6. 6.  Charles de Gaulle, Memoirs of Hope: Renewal and Endeavor, translated by Terence Kilmartin (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1971), 256.

7. 7.  Frédéric Bozo, French Foreign Policy since 1945: An Introduction, translated by Jonathan Hensher (New York: Berghahn Books, 2016), 72.

8. 8.  Hubert Zimmerman, ‘Who Paid for America’s War? Vietnam and the International Monetary System, 1960–1975’, in America, the Vietnam War, and the World: Comparative and International Perspectives, ed. Andreas W. Daum, Lloyd C. Gardner and Wilfried Mausbach (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 151–3, 156, 160–61. Electronic mail correspondence with Omar Choudhry, M.A., Economics, University of California, Berkeley, 18 January 2021; and with Professor Lori Maguire, University of Reims, 20 January 2021.

9. 9.  See for instance Joaquín Fermandois, ‘The Hero on the Latin American Scene’, in Globalizing de Gaulle: International Perspectives on French Foreign Policies, 1958–1969, ed. Christian Nuenlist, Anna Locher and Garret Martin (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010).

10. 10.  Mark Kramer, ‘Introduction: De Gaulle and Gaullism in France’s Cold War Foreign Policy’, in Globalizing de Gaulle, ed. Nuenlist, Locher and Martin, 2, 15. Yuko Torikata, ‘The U.S. Escalation in Vietnam and de Gaulle’s Secret Search for Peace, 1964–1966’, in Globalizing de Gaulle, ed. Nuenlist, Locher and Martin, 156–8.

11. 11.  Torikata, ‘The U.S. Escalation in Vietnam’, 171.

12. 12.  Bethany S. Keenan, ‘ “The US Embassy Has Been Particularly Sensitive about This”: Diplomacy, Antiwar Protests, and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs during 1968’, French Historical Studies 41, no. 2 (2018).

13. 13.  Prime Minister Palme’s speech at the Congress of the Brotherhood in Gävle on 30 July 1965 (Statsrådet Palmes anförande vid Broderskapsrörelsens kongress i Gävle den 30 juli 1965), Swedish Labour Movement’s Archives and Library, Olof Palme Archive (hereafter OPA), Talserien, vol. 676/2/4/0: 005. Electronic mail correspondence with Professor Erik Lindberg, Uppsala University, 27 June 2021; and with Professor Lars Magnusson, Uppsala University, 28 June 2021.

14. 14.  ‘The Today Show: Television Interview’, National Broadcasting Company, 9 June 1970, Swedish Information Service, OPA, Talserien, vol. 2.4.0: 021.

15. 15.  ‘The Today Show: Television Interview’.

16. 16.  ‘The Today Show: Television Interview’.

17. 17.  ‘Address by Olof Palme at Kenyon College, Ohio, June 6, 1970’, OPA, Talserien, vol. 2.4.0: 021.

18. 18.  ‘Address by the Swedish Prime Minister, Mr. Olof Palme, to the National Press Club, Friday, June 5, 1970’, OPA, Talserien, vol. 2.40: 021.

19. 19.  The Shrike was an anti-radiation air-to-ground missile that deliberately detected and then targeted anti-aircraft radar. Vice Admiral James Stockdale of the US Navy later described the Shrike as ‘an anti-radar honing missile’, James Stockdale and Sybil Stockdale, In Love and War: The Story of a Family’s Ordeal and Sacrifice During the Vietnam Years (New York: Harper and Row, 1984), 90.

20. 20.  Telegram 502 from Ambassador Jean-Christophe Öberg to Cabinet Stockholm, ‘Amerikanska Bombningar mot DRV för Pol och Press’, 9 October 1972, Riksarkivet (Arninge, Sweden; hereafter RA), HP 38:29, UD HP-Dossierer, Vietnamkriget, Mål:H. Hanoi politik, juli-december 1972.

21. 21.  Kaj Falkman, Ekot från Vietnam: En diplomats minnen från kriget och återbesök fyrtio år senare (Stockholm: Carlssons, 2014), 148. A. Lewis, ‘Abroad at Home’, The New York Times, 14 October 1972.

22. 22.  Falkman, Ekot från Vietnam, 148.

23. 23.  Falkman, Ekot från Vietnam, 148.

24. 24.  Falkman, Ekot från Vietnam, 148.

25. 25.  Falkman, Ekot från Vietnam, 92. Telegram 50 from Ambassador Jean-Christophe Öberg in Hanoi to Cabinet Stockholm, 11 October 1972, RA, HP 38:29, HP-Dossierer, Vietnamkriget, Mål: H. Hanoi politik, juli-december 1972.

26. 26.  ‘A Career Diplomat’, The New York Times, 21 October 1972, 3. Telegram 513 from Ambassador Jean-Christophe Öberg in Hanoi to Cabinet Stockholm, 11 October 1972. Telegram 516 from Öberg to Cabinet Stockholm, 12 October 1972. Telegram 527 from Öberg in Hanoi to Cabinet Stockholm, 17 October 1972; RA, HP 38:29, HP-Dossierer, Vietnamkriget, Mål: H. Hanoi politik, juli-december 1972.

27. 27.  ‘A Career Diplomat’. Falkman, Ekot från Vietnam, 148.

28. 28.  Falkman, Ekot från Vietnam, 147–9.

29. 29.  Telegram 514 from Ambassador Jean-Christophe Öberg to Cabinet Stockholm, ‘Amerikanska Bombningar Hanoi Onsday 11 Okt.’, 12 October 1972, RA, HP 38:29, HP-Dossierer, Vietnamkriget, Mål: H. Hanoi politik, juli-december 1972.

30. 30.  Telegram 530 from Ambassador Jean-Christophe Öberg to Cabinet Stockholm, 17 October 1972, RA, HP 38:29, HP-Dossierer, Vietnamkriget, Mål: H. Hanoi politik, juli-december 1972.

31. 31.  Falkman, Ekot från Vietnam, 149.

32. 32.  Telegram 447 from Hamilton at the Swedish Embassy in Paris to Cabinet Stockholm, 13 October 1972, RA, HP 38:29, HP-Dossierer, Vietnamkriget, Mål: H. Hanoi politik, juli-december 1972.

33. 33.  A linebacker, incidentally, is a playing position in American football, Nixon’s favourite spectator sport.

34. 34.  Marilyn Young, The Vietnam Wars: 1945–1990 (New York: HarperPerennial, 1991), 278.

35. 35.  James William Gibson, The Perfect War: Technowar in Vietnam (Boston and New York: The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986), 417.

36. 36.  Telegram 621 from Lundberg of the Swedish Embassy in Hanoi to Cabinet Stockholm, ‘Re Fortsätta Bombningarna Hanoi-Området’, 22 December 1972, RA, HP 38:30, HP-Dossierer, Vietnamkriget, Mål: H. Hanoi politik, 1972–1975.

37. 37.  ‘Declaration of the DRVN Ministry of Public Health on the deliberate attacks ordered by the Nixon administration against hospitals and other sanitary institutions in North Viet Nam’, 7 July 1972, forwarded by Ambassador Öberg in Hanoi to the Swedish Foreign Ministry, ‘Bombningar av hälsovårdsetablissemang i DRV’, 21 July 1972, RA, HP 38:29, HP-Dossierer, Vietnamkriget, Mål: H. Hanoi politik, juli-december 1972.

38. 38.  Telegram från statsminister Olof Palme till DRV:s regeringschef Pham Van Dong’ 20 December 1972; press communiqué, Pressbyrån, Foreign Affairs Department, RA, HP 38:58, HP-Dossierer, Vietnamkriget, 1972–1974.

39. 39.  Memorandum by Sverker Åstrom of the Swedish Foreign Ministry, 21 December 1972, Foreign Affairs Department, RA, HP 38:58, HP-Dossierer, Vietnamkriget, 1972–1974.

40. 40.  Christian Salm, Transnational Socialist Networks in the 1970s: European Community Development Aid and Southern Enlargement (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 37–8.

41. 41.  Bruno Kreisky, The Struggle for a Democratic Austria: Bruno Kreisky on Peace and Social Justice [edited by Matthew Paul Berg, in collaboration with Jill Lewis and Oliver Rathkolb, and translated by Helen Atkins and Matthew Paul Berg] (New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2000), 168.

42. 42.  Hélène Miard-Delacroix, Willy Brandt: The Life of a Statesman, translated by Isabelle Chaize (London: I.B. Tauris, 2016), 31; Salm, Transnational Socialist Networks, 38.

43. 43.  Kreisky, The Struggle for a Democratic Austria, 69, 190–91, 200–201, 209–13; Willy Brandt, My Life in Politics (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1992), 118; Miard-Delacroix, Willy Brandt, 35; Salm, Transnational Socialist Networks, 38.

44. 44.  Kreisky, The Struggle for a Democratic Austria, 295.

45. 45.  Brandt, My Life in Politics, 117.

46. 46.  Kreisky, The Struggle for a Democratic Austria, 229.

47. 47.  Salm, Transnational Socialist Networks, 38.

48. 48.  Kreisky, The Struggle for a Democratic Austria, 218.

49. 49.  Electronic mail correspondence with Maria Steiner, Bruno Kreisky Archiv, Vienna, 27 January 2021.

50. 50.  Bruno Kreisky, ‘Austria Draws the Balance’, Foreign Affairs 37, no. 2 (1959), 273–4; Kreisky, The Struggle for a Democratic Austria, 273, n. 20–21. Ove Bring, Neutralitetens uppgång och fall: eller de gemensamma säkerhetens historia (Stockholm: Atlantis, 2008), 261; Ulf Bjereld, Kritiker eller medlare? Sveriges utrikespolitiska roller 1945–1990 (Stockholm: Nerenius & Santérus Förlag, 1992), 166.

51. 51.  Kreisky, ‘Austria Draws the Balance’, 277. B. Vivekanandan, Global Visions of Olof Palme, Bruno Kreisky, and Willy Brandt: International Peace and Security, Co-operation, and Development (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 163.

52. 52.  Kreisky, The Struggle for a Democratic Austria, 327. Vivekanandan, Global Visions of Olof Palme, Bruno Kreisky, and Willy Brandt, 237. Statement by Professor Oliver Rathkolb of the University of Vienna in electronic mail from Professor Guenter J. Bischof, University of New Orleans, 13 February 2024.

53. 53.  Miard-Delacroix, Willy Brandt, 106–7.

54. 54.  Electronic mail correspondence with Professor Bernd Greiner, Universität Hamburg, 28 January 2021.

55. 55.  Memorandum by Sverker Åstrom, Swedish Foreign Ministry, 21 December 1972.

56. 56.  Memorandum by Sverker Åstrom, Swedish Foreign Ministry, 21 December 1972. ‘Former West German Social Democratic Party Leader Tells Swedes What He Thinks about Kissinger Speech and Kissinger Protest’, telegram from the US Embassy in Stockholm to US Secretary of State William P. Rogers, 26 April 1973 (Courtesy of John Powers, US National Archives and Records Administration, Electronic Telegrams, 1973).

57. 57.  Memorandum by Sverker Åstrom, 21 December 1972.

58. 58.  Memorandum by Sverker Åstrom, 21 December 1972.

59. 59.  Memorandum by Sverker Åstrom, 21 December 1972.

60. 60.  Memorandum by Sverker Åstrom, 21 December 1972.

61. 61.  Henrik Berggren, Underbara dagar framför oss: en biografi över Olof Palme (Stockholm: Norstedts, 2010), 463; Alvin Schuster, ‘Swedish Chilliness Toward U.S. is Limited to Vietnam’, The New York Times, 8 January 1973, 8.

62. 62.  Palme’s draft of Christmas Bombing speech, OPA, vol. 2.4.0: 044, Tal 1972.

63. 63.  Schuster, ‘Swedish Chilliness’.

64. 64.  Schuster, ‘Swedish Chilliness’.

65. 65.  Kai Falkman, Interview with author, Stockholm, Sweden, 6 July 2016.

66. 66.  Palme phoned in his speech to the Swedish news agency Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå. Berggren, Underbara dagar, 463. Göran Hägg, Retorik i Tiden: 23 historiska recept för framgång (Stockholm: Norstedts, 2011), 189–91. Electronic mail correspondence with Jan Stellan Andersson, Archivist Emeritus, ARAB, 7 November 2019.

67. 67.  Gunilla Banks, ed., Olof Palme Speaking: Articles and speeches (Stockholm: Premiss förlag, 2006), 141–2.

68. 68.  Banks, ed., Olof Palme Speaking, 141–2.

69. 69.  Jan Eliasson, Interview with author, Stockholm, Sweden, 7 June 2017.

70. 70.  Eliasson, Interview with author, Stockholm, Sweden, 7 June 2017.

71. 71.  Eliasson, Interview with author, Stockholm, Sweden, 7 June 2017.

72. 72.  Telegram 626 from Lundberg of the Swedish Embassy in Hanoi to Cabinet Stockholm, ‘Re Bombningar Bach Mai-Sjukhuset’, 24 December 1972, RA, HP 38:30, UD HP-Dossierer, Vietnamkriget, Mål: H. Hanoi politik, 1972–1975.

73. 73.  Telegram 629 from Lundberg of the Swedish Embassy in Hanoi to Cabinet Stockholm, ‘Re Bombningarna Bach Mai-Sjukhuset’, 27 December 1972, RA, HP 38:30, UD HP-Dossierer, Vietnamkriget, Mål: H. Hanoi politik, 1972–1975.

74. 74.  Telegram from Ambassador Jean-Christophe Öberg in Hanoi to Cabinet Stockholm, 10 January 1973, RA, HP 38:30, UD HP-Dossierer, Vietnamkriget, Mål: H. Hanoi politik, 1972–1975.

75. 75.  Telegram from Ambassador Jean-Christophe Öberg, 10 January 1973.

76. 76.  See Lubna Z. Qureshi, Nixon, Kissinger, and Allende: U.S. Involvement in the 1973 Coup in Chile (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009). Stanley I. Kutler, The Wars of Watergate: The Last Crisis of Richard Nixon (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1992); and Stanley I. Kutler, Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes (New York: Touchstone, 1998). For an audio sampling of the true Nixon personality, I would recommend nixontapes.org.

77. 77.  Telegram 1651 from Ambassador Hubert de Besche in Washington to Cabinet Stockholm, ‘För pol och press’, 21 December 1972, RA, HP 38:15, UD HP-Dossierer, Vietnamkriget, Mål: C. USA politik, augusti-december 1972, 1972–1973. See John Boyko, The Devil’s Trick: How Canada Fought the Vietnam War (Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2021) and Jessica Squires, Building Sanctuary: The Movement to Support Vietnam War Resisters in Canada, 1965–73 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2013).

78. 78.  Robert Burns, ‘… As Others See Us’, The New York Times, 8 January 1973, 38; Paul Hofmann, ‘War Raids Incite Anti-U.S. Feelings in Italy’, The New York Times, 3 January 1973, 8.

79. 79.  Electronic mail correspondence with Bernd Greiner, Universität Hamburg, and Bernd Rother, Bundeskanzler Willy Brandt Stiftung, 16 and 17 December 2020.

80. 80.  Burns, ‘… As Others See Us’; Hofmann, ‘War Raids’.

81. 81.  Brandt, My Life in Politics, 364.

82. 82.  Berggren, Underbara dagar, 119, 123–4, 129–33. Kjell Östberg, I takt med tiden: Olof Palme 1927–1969 (Stockholm: Leopard Förlag, 2012), 61–3.

83. 83.  Brandt, My Life in Politics, 394.

84. 84.  Zimmerman, ‘The Quiet German’, 53, 58.

85. 85.  Rolf Ekéus, Interview with author, Stockholm, Sweden, 19 January 2016.

86. 86.  Telegram 1651 from Ambassador Hubert de Besche, 21 December 1972.

87. 87.  The 1955 renewal of the 1948 Soviet-Finnish Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance formalised Finnish neutrality. Juhana Aunesluoma and Johanna Rainio-Niemi, ‘Neutrality as Identity? Finland’s Quest for Security in the Cold War’, Journal of Cold War Studies 18, no. 4 (2016), 53–4.

88. 88.  Aunesluoma and Rainio-Niemi, ‘Neutrality as Identity?’, 56.

89. 89.  P. Høi, ‘ “Kissinger: Anker Jørgensen er en tørvetriller”’, Berlingske, 8 March 2015, https://www.berlingske.dk/samfund/kissinger-anker-joergensen-er-en-toervetriller, Courtesy of Ron Ridenour.

90. 90.  Telegram 1651 from Ambassador Hubert de Besche, 21 December 1972, 105. Matthew Jones, ‘ “The Blue-Eyed Boys”: The Heath Government, Anglo-American Relations, and the Bombing of North Vietnam in 1972’, The International History Review 44, no. 1 (2022), 104–5, 107.

91. 91.  Høi, ‘Kissinger’.

92. 92.  Telegram from Prime Minister Pham Van Dong of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam to Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, 25 December 1972, OPA, Brevsamling, vol. 3.2/82 (courtesy of Joakim Palme).

93. 93.  Coded Telegram 26 from Ambassador Jean-Christophe Öberg in Hanoi for Prime Minister Olof Palme, 19 January 1973, RA, HP 38:30, UD HP-Dossierer, Vietnamkriget, Mål: H, Hanoi politik, 1972–1975.

94. 94.  Coded Telegram 26 from Ambassador Öberg for Prime Minister Palme, 19 January 1973.

95. 95.  Bozo, French Foreign Policy, 51.

96. 96.  Bozo, French Foreign Policy, 70–71.

97. 97.  Bozo, French Foreign Policy, 85.

98. 98.  Coded Telegram 26 from Ambassador Öberg for Prime Minister Palme, 19 January 1973.

99. 99.  Hägg, Retorik i Tiden, 189, 191.

100. 100.  Stephen E. Ambrose, Nixon: The Education of a Politician 1913–1962 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987), 105–16; Schuster, ‘Swedish Chilliness’; Richard H. Immerman, ‘Confessions of an Eisenhower Revisionist: An Agonizing Reappraisal’, Diplomatic History 14, no. 3 (1990), 337.

101. 101.  Berggren, Underbara dagar, 508.

102. 102.  Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 21–32.

103. 103.  Isaacson, Kissinger, 43–56.

104. 104.  In The Trials of Henry Kissinger, a documentary film directed by Jarecki (New York: First Run Features, 2002).

105. 105.  Electronic mail correspondence with Robert Dallek, 7 October 2020.

106. 106.  Kreisky, The Struggle for a Democratic Austria, 45; Vivekanandan, Global Visions, 175. Correspondence with Maria Steiner, Bruno Kreisky Archiv.

107. 107.  Letter from Willy Brandt to Olof Palme and Bruno Kreisky, 17 September 1972 in Willy Brandt, Bruno Kreisky and Olof Palme, Brev Och Samtal (Kristianstad, Sweden: Tidens Förlag, 1976), 48.

108. 108.  Letter from Olof Palme to Willy Brandt and Bruno Kreisky, 10 May 1973 in Brandt, Kreisky and Palme, Brev Och Samtal, 74.

109. 109.  In Telegram 235 from the Swedish Embassy in Washington to Cabinet Stockholm, 17 March 1983 (originally written by Ambassador Hubert de Besche, 23 December 1972), RA, HP 38:38, Foreign Affairs Department, HP-Dossierer, Vietnamkriget, 1972–1974, and HP 38:58.

110. 110.  Telegram 235, from the Swedish Embassy in Washington to Cabinet Stockholm.

111. 111.  Berggren, Underbara dagar, 464.

112. 112.  Schuster, ‘Swedish Chilliness’.

113. 113.  Telegram 235, from the Swedish Embassy in Washington to Cabinet Stockholm.

114. 114.  Rolf Ekéus led a historical investigation of Swedish Cold War policy; see Rolf Ekéus, Mathias Mossberg and Birgitta Arvidsson, eds. Fred och säkerhet: Svensk säkerhetspolitik, 1969–1989 (Stockholm: Fritzes offentliga publikationer, 2002). See also Ulf Bjereld, Alf W. Johansson and Karl Molin, Sveriges säkerhet och världens fred: svensk utrikespolitik under kalla kriget (Stockholm: Santérus Förlag, 2008).

115. 115.  Ekéus interview.

116. 116.  Henry A. Kissinger, ‘To settle the Ukraine crisis, start at the end’, The Washington Post, 5 March 2014.

117. 117.  Kissinger, ‘To settle the Ukraine crisis, start at the end’.

118. 118.  Ekéus interview. Laura Secor, ‘Henry Kissinger is Worried About “Disequilibrium”’, The Wall Street Journal, 12 August 2022.

119. 119.  Ann-Marie Ekengren, ‘Den långa vägen mot NATO’, a panel at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, Stockholm, Sweden, 6 November 2023. See also Douglas Brommesson, Ann-Marie Ekengren and Anna Michalski, ‘Sweden’s Policy of Neutrality: Success Through Flexibility?’ in Successful Public Policy in the Nordic Countries, ed. Caroline de Porte et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), 284, 301.

120. 120.  Ann-Marie Ekengren, Olof Palme och utrikespolitiken: Europa och Tredje (Umeå: Boréa, 2005), 46–7.

121. 121.  Kreisky also spoke Swedish, but I don’t know if he spoke Swedish with Palme. Rolf Ekéus, who listened to Palme’s telephone conversations with Brandt, said they spoke Swedish.

122. 122.  Ekéus interview; and J.S. Andersson, ‘Democracy and Disarmament — Some Notes on Public Opinion, Peace Movements, and the Disarmament Process in the Early 1980s’, Conference on Swedish Disarmament Policy, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden, 26 November 2012. Miard-Delecroix, Willy Brandt: Life of a Statesman, 170. Electronic mail correspondence with Jan Stellan Andersson, Archivist Emeritus, ARAB, 15 February 2024.

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