The Russians Leave

Day after Germany's Adenauer left for home, the Finns popped into Moscow for a five-day visit. It was another of Moscow's surprises, capped by a concession. Premier Bulganin, indisposed from the "overwork" of the negotiations with Adenauer, was not on hand to greet Finland's 84-year-old President Juho Paasikivi and Premier Urho Kekkonen when they stepped from the Russian plane that had brought them from Helsinki. But two days later it was Bulganin, pale but smiling, who informed the Finnish Premier that because of the "friendly relationship existing between Fmland and the Soviet Union," Russia had decided to return the Porkkala base to the Finns and pull all Russian troops out of their country.

Porkkala is a 150-sq.-mi. enclave just southwest of Helsinki that Finland was forced to "lease" to the Soviets at the time of the 1944 armistice. There, behind a secrecy no Finn was allowed to penetrate, the Russians destroyed the homes of nearly 8,000 Finns and installed coast guns, jets and some 20,000 troops. Later they allowed trains to cross the peninsula, so long as steel shutters were drawn over windows. Heavy explosions in the area shook windows in Helsinki several times a week until recently. One night last week explosions were heard briefly again as the Russians prepared to leave. Heavily laden barges put out from the base, carrying equipment and supplies back to Russia.

The news made Finns uneasily happy. "How nice, but what is the price?" asked an old housekeeper. The Russians made no mystery of it. With the Geneva Foreign Ministers' conference on the horizon, they are maneuvering for a big new drive against U.S. military bases.

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