Burr

Little Finland has been a burr in a bear's paw. The bear has alternately gone after it with tooth & claw, licked it with honeyed tongue. Before last year's elections, Russia offered the Finns a friendship pact, reduced their reparations debt. The maneuver failed. The Finns trotted off to the polls, returned even fewer Communists to the Diet than they had had before. Last week, on the eve of Finland's presidential election, the bear bared his teeth.

Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko sent a peremptory note accusing Finland of harboring more than 300 "war criminals," the last of thousands of Soviet citizens--Ingrians, Estonians, Karelians--who had fled as the Red army pushed back the Wehrmacht in 1944. The Russians specifically demanded the surrender of 65 of the fugitives for "treason." The hard-pressed Finns made some arrests, but it was clear that they would not find most of the fugitives. Gromyko knew this well: Russia had asked for the return of the "traitors" before, when Communist Yrjo Leino was still Interior Minister. Not even Leino had been able to find them.

The Gromyko note meant one of two things: 1) the Russians are trying to better the chances of the Finnish Communist Party at the polls; 2) Russia is ready to take a more direct hand in the affairs of its little neighbor. Explained one Finnish official cautiously: "The Gromyko note is Russia's way of protesting against the Social Democratic government and [conservative] Paasikivi as presidential candidate."

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