Sweden's Olof Palme: "Neutral But Not Silent"

NO political figure in the Western world was more critical of President Nixon's decision to resume the bombing of North Viet Nam than Sweden's Prime Minister Olof Palme. In an emotional statement last December. Palme, 45, an intense, dedicated socialist, compared the aerial attacks on Hanoi and Haiphong to the past atrocities of "Guernica, Oradour, Babi Yar, Katyn, Lidice, Sharpeville, Treblinka." Washington, long annoyed by Sweden's harsh criticism of the U.S. role in the war, reacted sharply, telling Stockholm, in effect, not to bother sending a new ambassador to the U.S. capital for the time being. Will those ill feelings last into the peace? Palme for one does not think so, as he explained in an interview with TIME'S Diplomatic Editor Jerrold Schecter. Excerpts:

PALME: We have been used to looking to the United States for moral leadership and authority when it comes to questions of peace and the preservation of basic human values...And just because of this we feel our sorrow and our disappointment to be so great when something like the bombings of Hanoi and Haiphong happens.

SCHECTER: What right does the Swedish Prime Minister have to equate the bombing with the worst Nazi atrocities, given Sweden's record [of neutrality] during World War II?

PALME: I didn't make a direct analogy...You can't compare military commanders or political systems. What I wanted to illustrate is the effects on human beings of mass violence and the enormity of what was happening during the bombings of Hanoi...To make people listen and understand you have to use fairly strong language. During the second World War we took a strong democratic stand in our country. There were open debates. During a dark period, we had to let through some trains with people [Germans] going on leave from Norway. But that we cooperated with the Nazis is sheer nonsense.

SCHECTER: Are you for or against the United States?

PALME: Neutrality has never condemned us to be silent on world issues. Never. When we protested against Hungary, Czechoslovakia or the Berlin Wall in fairly strong language, we didn't hear anything from the White House about our neutrality. There is a long-term political objective...It's all right for the superpowers to have detente...Bui one of the dangers is that if the superpowers have a detente among themselves they might feel free to push small countries around. The danger is this, that the enormous power of the superpowers will be a threat to the independence and right to exist of small countries. We have to speak up for the right of small countries to create their own future.

SCHECTER: How could the U.S. benefit by your experience with the North Vietnamese?

PALME: We must remember that the sensitivities will be very great, but they are realistic...Our thoughts were of the possibility of creating a new type of international machinery to channel reconstruction efforts so that they do not become the exclusive concern of any one country and become an international effort. There were thoughts of an international consortium where the Vietnamese would have a very large say because they have a very great distrust for international bodies.

SCHECTER: What will the long-term results of the bombing of Hanoi mean for the U.S. in Europe? Will it be quickly forgotten?

PALME: If the U.S. continues these kinds of horrors, what about the next time there is trouble in Eastern Europe? The U.S. has lost all moral grounds for complaining. It is a convergence of the Soviet and U.S. systems. The U.S. did something that the Soviets were prepared to do in Czechoslovakia. The Brezhnev and Nixon doctrines are dangerous for small countries.

SCHECTER: Does world opinion influence policy?

PALME: Yes, but not always, not in all cases and never totally. But why are the Russians still making concessions on the Soviet Jews? They were plagued badly on the Czech situation by world opinion. Nixon had many reasons to stop the bombing. World opinion was one of them.

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