A Man Who Wanted Limelight

Finland last week had a new government, its fifth in 3 1/2 years. The Premier was Sakari Tuomioja, 42. a cigar-puffing banker who was once stenographer to the Finnish Diet. His Cabinet is the most conservative since World War II. But it is only a caretaker government until the next election, probably in March. Tuomioja's real significance is that he plans to run the country without the help of ex-Premier Urho Kekkonen, the able, unpopular Agrarian who has bossed every Finnish cabinet since 1950.

Kekkonen's cabinet was overthrown earlier this month when he tried to force through a badly needed austerity program.

Last week, in a fit of pique, he made a desperate attempt to stay in the limelight.

Big Deal. Kekkonen let it be known that he had been secretly conferring with the Soviet ambassador to Helsinki, and that he was actually on the point of signing a big new trade agreement when his government was voted down. The agreement would have 1) granted Finland credit with no strings attached; 2) paid for 10% or even 15% of Finnish exports to Russia in sterling or dollars; 3) reopened the question of Finnish territory captured by the Red army in World War II. Moscow, said Kekkonen, was preparing to let Finnish lumbermen float log rafts down the Saimaa Canal, which connects their inland lakes with the Baltic, a canal which Russia annexed in 1947. Russia's only condition, said Kekkonen, was that Helsinki should "continue to follow a foreign policy of mutual assistance and friendship between the two countries."

But instead of concluding, as Kekkonen apparently intended, that the nation could trust him to deal safely and profitably with the Russians, Finns from left to right were shocked.

Painful Reminder. The Kekkonen incident was a painful reminder of Finland's dangerous dependence on Soviet trade concessions. For eight years (1944-52), the Finns worked like demons to pay the Soviet Union $570 million in reparations. The effort cost them dear. To meet Soviet demands for ships and machinery, Finland was forced to double the capacity of its metal industry. It ended up with an artificial industrial plant, geared not to its own needs but to Russia's, and lacking alternative (nonCommunist) markets to take care of the surplus. Wages were allowed to rise to uneconomic levels because strikes might have jeopardized regular deliveries, and thus given the Kremlin an excuse to intervene. Result: Finland's prices are far too high to compete in Western markets. Its economy was riveted to the Russian market, and the Kremlin was in a position to withhold purchases and create mass unemployment in Finland, almost at will.

To escape the Bear's hug, Finland's new government hopes for an opening of Western markets and a new trade pact with Britain. Tuomioja's Cabinet could do most to help at home by paring down wages and prices, and curtailing social benefits which Finland cannot afford. But not even Tuomioja's conservatives dare offend both the Soviet Union and the Finnish trade unions, which are wedded to the welfare state. The new Premier announced: "We shall continue Finland's policy of friendship with all nations, especially with the Soviet Union."

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