Anchorman for Europe

Press, 10 February 1982, Page 21

Anchorman for Europe

An “Observer" profile

The president of Finland is (he drawing-pin which holds up one corner of the map of Europe. Last month, the Finnish people chose Mauno Koivisto to be their leader.

'Helsinki seems far away in Europe, a small city closer to Leningrad than to any other capital. But if Finland comes unstuck, drooping away to Right or Left, then the whole map slews off into political confusion. A change in Finnish neutrality undermines the neutrality of Sweden, which in turn brings into question Norway's nonnuclear membership of N.A.T.O. and the security of Denmark. • The whole delicate balance of power in Europe, which means the global relations between the Soviet Union and the United States, would be thrown out of stability.

Koivisto was already Prime Minister, but the President dominates the nation and its foreign policy as de Gaulle dominated France. The Finns chose him by giving his supporters‘almost half the places in the electoral college. The Finnish people have spoken with a passion they seldom display, throwing away their party loyalties for the sake of a human being they like and trust for himself. After the 25-year reign of the great Urho Kekkonen, a successor has been found to preserve the continuity of Finnish neutrality and hold the north-eastern corner of Europe in place.

Why Koivisto is so much adored is a question even Finns cannot quite answer. He is lanky and handsome, in a disorderly kind of way. He has a lock of black hair which falls over his forehead when he gets carried away —" poignant for Finnish women, according to Finnish men. He appeared on tele-

vision, famously, with a large darn showing in his sock. He can answer grave questions on the economy by saying that he doesn't, know; or that things will get worse. He is gangling, deter- , mined, incurably honest. If he resembles anyone, he resembles Gary Cooper, in “Mr Deeds Goes To Town,” and perhaps this is the key. The Finns are tired of . superior politicians. Koivisto is 58 years old, and started poor. He grew up in the port city of Turku and worked in the docks as a young man, studying parttime for a doctorate in sociology. In the war — which for the Finns was mostly a war with the Soviet Union — Koivisto served as a private soldier in a legendary little outfit known as “Torni’s Band.” which used to fly by seaplane to remote lakes behind the Russian lines and carry out prodigies of sabotage and disruption. Lauri Torni became an American officer after the war and died in Vietnam on a helicopter raid into Vietcong territory.

Though the Finns, for obvious reason, do not make a song and dance about those days, people know that Koivisto fought with that unit and it does him no harm at all. After the war, Koivisto joined the Social Democrats. Already, his odd magnetism was at work. The Finns still have the old system which obliges a doctorate student to defend his thesis in public against academic adversaries. In Turku, they say that when these “opponents” began to criticise Koivisto’s dissertation on conditions in the harbour, dockers on the university benches stood up and shouted them down.

In spite of. his political commitment and his.. popular appeal. Koivisto has never

tried to get into Parliament. Real power in Finland is scattered all over the landscape. like the country's myriad lakes, and it was an accepted step in a political career that Koivisto joined the Workers’ Savings Bank (run by the Social Democrats) and moved to Helsinki. As a socialist, Koivisto was never on the Marxist wing and soon emerged as a figure decidedly on the Right of the party. Those who came and asked for loans on the basis of party membership got a frosty reception from Koivisto, which won him some enemies and many admirers. In 1966, the Social Democrats were brought back from the political wilderness and given places in the new coalition Government. Koivisto became Minister of Finance and a governor of the Bank of Finland, then Prime Minister from 1968-70 (in Finland, a Minister does not have to be an M.P.) However, Koivisto’s fortunes now dipped. Finnish politics were dominated in these years by President Kekkonen, of the Centre Party, and his faithful lieutenant Ahti Karjaleinen, who between then enforced their own interpretation of how the delicate and crucial relationship with the Soviet Union should be handled. Finland was at the time contemplating the proposal for a Nordic economic association (Nordec) with other Scandinavian countries, two of them N.A.T.O. members. Koivisto showed too much enthusiasm. Kekkonen, although he may privately have agreed with Koivisto.

made his disapproval public. Shortly afterwards, the Government took a beating in the 1970 elections and Koivisto resigned. In a way, it turned out for the best. Koivisto became governor of the Bank of Finland again, and it was his battle against the European recession of the 1970 s which really built his popularity. He has the distinction — if that is the right word — of being the first Social Democrat statesman in Europe to resort to monetarism.

Faced with the recession after the 1973 Yom Kippur War in the Middle East. Koivisto ruthlessly cut the money supply and brought the lending of private banks to heel. The result, inevitably, was unemployment, and protests from his party colleagues in Government. But Finnish industry, especially in pulp and ship building, was in far better shape to ride returning prosperity a few years later than neighbouring Sweden, whose Social Democrat Government had gone on subsidising employment in ailing factories. And, most remarkable of all, the Finns grew to like Koivisto for what he was doing. It was a matter of style. He turned out to be a master of the television appearance, his grave expression and total candour contrasting with the evasions of Cabinet Ministers. Koivisto. at least, seemed to have courage, to know what he was doing. The Finns appreciated what a journalist calls "his fluently taciturn wisdom." If he had nothing to say. he said nothing.

People in Helsinki became used to his long figure plodding to work (he hates cars) in his invariable dark-blue raincoat and felt hat. By the time he became Prime Min-

ister again in 1979, he was already a cult figure. In a way, his popularity showed that the Finns were becoming restless under Urho Kekkonen. Koivisto persuades where Kekkonen, who retired at 80 in October last year, gave almost military orders. He stands for an easy-going, approachable style of leadership; Kekkonen’s grandeur was a touch oppressive by the end. Koivisto is a man who knows that the world is not only imperfect but hopelessly inperfectible. He once wrote a turgid but surprisingly popular book called simply “Wrong Policies.” Given to thinking aloud, which can be disconcerting for those around the Cabinet table, Koivisto once said dreamily: “It’s amazing how often the right decision is made on the wrong grounds.” One ambassador, meeting him for the first time, was astonished by his habit of ignoring questions and darting off “like a rabbit down a hole” after some speculative topic only indirectly relevant. With colleagues, he tends to ' give rambling resumes of a problem rather than Issue decisions, although those who press him for an answer can always extract a “yes” or "no" in the end. "But he is tough, too. In April. 1980, he became the first Finnish Prime Minister to stand up tb’ the ailing President Kekkonen and win. He has had his rows with the trade unions, the Social Democrat Left, and even fellow bankers, and has survived. Last month's election broke all the traditions of Finnish politics — usually conducted on strict party lines. The Social Democrates did twice as well as they did in the last parliamentary election. They knew thev

were surfing home on the votes of people who liked Koivisto rather than his party, and ran an open campaign.

Koivisto’s wife, Tellervo, and his 24-year-old daughter, Assi, were both put up as “independents” and swept into the college (Tellervo’s vote w T as a phenomenon in itself). A group of non-party intellectuals "for Koivisto" broke through in Helsinki. Even in Lapland, where the Social Democrats are normally frozen out. the party came level with the Centre" candidates. Whether the Social Democrats will do as well in the next general election is another mailer.

In foreign policy, Koivisto will make few." if any. changes. The Soviet Union would have preferred a Centre man. probably, but

will learn to live with him. He has visited the U.S.S.R. only once, in 1968, and never graduated to the huntingparty. back-slapping intimacy which Kekkonen achieved with Brezhnev and the late Alexei Kosygin.

This does not sound like Koivisto’s image. Heroic boozing and wenching — cultivated by many successful Finnish statesman — are not his scene. He prefers a good book. He must, all the same, learn to satisfy the yearning of the Soviet leaders to feel that the Finnish President is not just any foreign statesman, and "certainly not a mere toady, but a friend who personally, literally, likes their company.

At home. Koivisto must repair some of the chaos which his own triumph has brought to the political

scene. Erkki Liikanen, secretary of the Social Democrats, says: “His first job is to reunite the nation. He will be a lot less strict in domestic politics.” But things can never be the same again in Finland. The rise of the Conservatives and the Social Democrats, at the expense of other parties, points to a less fragmented, more Scandinavian political scene — more like that in Norway. The almost Gaullist presidential system itself may now be modified. Koivisto himself took the prospect of victory with his usual stoicism. He went skiing. While the votes were being counted, he was playing volley-ball, a game he plays as if his life depended on it and plays well. A Finn explained: “He has enormous hands." Finland should be safe in them.