End of an Institution

Interrupted only by the Nazi occupation, Norway's Labor Party had been in power for 28 years, longer than any other democratic party in Europe. Last week it was out.

At the root of its downfall was a long-developing schism between the party's moderate, pro-West majority and its far-left fringe, which demands Norway's withdrawal from NATO. Two years ago, some leftist Laborites bolted, formed a splinter "Socialist People's Party," and managed to win two parliamentary seats. Partly as a result of the defection, Premier Einar Gerhardsen's government lost its majority in the Storting (parliament), found itself deadlocked, 74 seats to 74 seats, with the opposition coalition. The balance of power was held by two splinter leftists. Reluctantly, Gerhardsen accepted their support to stay in office.

What broke up the uneasy coalition and brought on Norway's first government crisis in a generation was a tragic scandal in the state-run coal mines. In recent years, four disastrous explosions and several lesser accidents have plagued the mines, at a cost of 74 lives. Several weeks ago, an investigating commission charged official negligence. Last week, after four days of angry debate, the two splinter Socialists joined with the opposition in a no-confidence vote. One of the leftists, Finn Gustavsen, explained that the S.P.P. toppled Gerhardsen because "he has no longer any contact with the working class." There was spite involved, too; Gerhardsen recently appointed that old Communist target, ex-U.N. Secretary-General Trygve Lie, a staunch Laborite, to the post of Minister of Industry.

As the unchallenged leader of his party for two decades, Gerhardsen, 66, had become a national institution, was so scrupulous that he insisted on buying his own postage stamps for personal letters. He ran a part-free, largely controlled economy, was staunchly pro-West and led Norway into NATO. His successor was expected to be blond, husky Conservative Floor Leader John Lyng, 58, attorney and brilliant prosecutor of Norway's Nazi war criminals. Conservative Lyng's four-party coalition consists chiefly of farmers, merchants and industrialists, whose economic views are less statist than the Laborites'; but Lyng will hardly try to alter Norway's deeply ingrained welfare society--and certainly not its NATO policies. With the two maverick leftists still holding the balance of power, he knows that he will be lucky to survive until the next election in 1965.

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