Sweden and the dilemmas of neutral intelligence liaison

Abstract

Throughout the Cold War Sweden pursued a declared policy of non-alignment. Sweden nevertheless established security links with a number of Western powers, first of all Britain and the US. The most extensive links were developed in two areas – military technology and intelligence. Intelligence liaison was of crucial importance for the security of non-aligned Sweden, but also significant for the major Western powers in filling gaps in intelligence collection. But intelligence liaison also served as an instrument in a closed policy arena where Sweden could receive or pay back favours, according to a pattern established already during World War II. However, intelligence liaison contained policy dilemmas, some of a more general nature, some specific for a country with an overt policy of non-alignment.

Key Words:

• intelligence
• liaison
• Cold War

Notes

¹One example is the still prevailing attitude towards declassification of documents relating to intelligence liaison. In the late 1980s I came across the reference to two volumes of correspondence on intelligence matters from 1943 to 1961 in the non-classified list of volumes in the Defence staff top secret archive. After appealing against an initial negative decision, about half of the documents were declassified by the Ministry of Defence. Most of the released documents, notes, drafts of letters, complaints over extensive restaurant bills, had some bearing on liaison, but all key documents were withheld, even those from the 1940s. This remains the case in 2005, even though all Foreign Ministry documents from the first decades of the Cold War have by now been declassified.

² Den militära underrättelsetjänsten Betänkande av 1974 års underrättelseutredning (Stockholm: Fritzes SOU 1976), 19. A more comprehensive account, although limited to matters of counter-infiltration, was given by the commission investigating the conduct of the security services, Rikets säkerhet och den personliga integriteten. De svenska säkerhetstjänsternas författningsskyddande verksamhet sedan år 1945. Betänkande av säkerhetstjänstkommissionen (Stockholm: Fritzes, SOU 2002), 87.

³In his thorough account of the Swedish intelligence in World War II, Professor Wilhelm Carlgren, chief of the Foreign Ministry archive, supplies large number of details and document references but gives no systematic account of the liaison relations of the Swedish intelligence agencies. Wilhelm M. Carlgren, Svensk underrättelsetjänst 1939–1945 (Stockholm: Liber 1985).

⁴H. Bradford Westerfield uses the term ‘Crypto-diplomacy’ to describe the grey zone between intelligence liaison and traditional diplomacy in ‘America and the World of Intelligence Liaison’, Intelligence and National Security 11/3 (July 1996), 523–60.

⁵There are some no exceptions. The British Special Operations Executive (SOE) had a profound interest in Swedish iron ore production and the export routes to Germany. In a corresponding way the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS) recruited Swedish employees at the ball bearing producer SKF to spy on the company's exports to Germany.

⁶Ladislas Farago, The Game of the Foxes, British and German Intelligence Operations and Personalities Which Changed the Course of World War II (London: Hodder & Stoughton 1972). For a scholarly account see C.G. McKay, From Information to Intrigue. Studies in Secret Service based on the Swedish Experience, 1939–1945 (London: Frank Cass 1993).

⁷The Swedish Security Service kept a close watch on the activities of the Allied intelligence officers, among them the British service attachés and the staff of the Norwegian intelligence office in Stockholm. The British naval attaché Capt. Henry Denham gives numerous examples of this harassment in his memoirs Inside the Nazi Ring (London: John Murray 1984).

⁸This is clearly displayed in the document with instructions for the chief of the Abwehr station in Stockholm, Hans Wagner, on his arrival in Sweden in 1940. Wagner was responsible for ‘combating our enemies in cooperation with the Swedish authorities’. Berlin, Germany, Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Pol. IM Akten 109, Dienstanweisung für den V.O. Stockholm, OKW 15. nov. 1940.

⁹A detailed account of the Swedish-German police liaison before and during the war is given in Lars Borgersrud, Wollweberorganisasjonen i Norge (Oslo: Acta Humaniora 1997).

¹⁰Denham, Inside the Nazi Ring, 79ff. and Carlgren, Svensk underrätelsetjänst 1939–1945, 98ff. Carlgren is clearly critical of Björnstjerna's actions and asks rhetorically if his ‘conduct was at all appropriate for a high defence staff official in a neutral country’. Björnstierna was forced to leave active duty in autumn 1942 and was according to Denham under threat of being court-martialled. Björnstierna's case is an important example of the role of personal convictions and whistle-blowing in liaison.

¹¹The V-2 can be seen as a part of an emerging technological intelligence exchange whereby Sweden acquired its first radar sets from Britain in 1944.

¹²College Park, PA, USA, The National Archives, OSS files, RG 226, 210:436:32926. Scandinavian SI, 20 Nov. 1944.

¹³Surveillance and registration of members of the Swedish Communist Party (SKP) ceased in 1945, when the emergency legislation in force during the war was abolished. In 1945–48 there was no systematic surveillance of party members and sympathisers, creating a ‘gap’ in coverage once control was re-established in 1948.

¹⁴In a cable from OSS Stockholm to the X-2 branch, Washington DC, 1 Aug. 1945 the emerging liaison arrangement with and orientation of Swedish intelligence is summarised. Sweden, states the telegram, is planning to organise its future intelligence eastward, using representatives of large Swedish firms with representatives in Russia, the Baltic area and the Balkans. This information would be supplied to OSS, but the Swedes in return requested intelligence on present Russian dispositions in Europe. ‘Can we supply?’ asks OSS Stockholm. College Park, USA, The National Archives, OSS files, RG 226, 210:379:1, cable Taylor Stockholm to OSS Washington DC, 1 Aug. 1945.

¹⁵For an account of Swedish Sigint before and during World War II see Bengt Beckman and C.G. McKay, Swedish Signals Intelligence 1900–1945 (London: Frank Cass 2003).

¹⁶The operation was planned jointly by the closely cooperating Finnish and Swedish intelligence services and was initially a security measure in case of Soviet occupation of Finland following the ceasefire in early Sept. 1944. The designation ‘Stella Polaris’ appeared at a later stage and was the name of one of the freighters carrying the intelligence personnel and their families to Sweden. Later it became a part of their identity, and they were referred to and called themselves ‘Stellists’. For an account of the operation and its aftermath, see Jörgen Cederberg and Göran Elgemyr, ‘Operation Stella Polaris’, in Clio Goes Spying: Eight Essays on the History of Intelligence (Lund: Lund Studies in International History 1983). The US intelligence use of the Stellists and their material, as well as the multi-purchase of codes and other valuables, is described by Matthew Aid, ‘“Stella Polaris” and the Secret Code Battle in Post-war Europe’, Intelligence and National Security 17/3 (Autumn 2002), 17–86.

¹⁷There are some indications that the Swedish intelligence did not receive intelligence on Soviet preparations for a military intervention in Poland 1980–81. The diary of Gen. Ljung, then Supreme Commander, describes how Swedish-Finnish intelligence liaison became of crucial importance, with Sweden receiving early warning based on Finnish surveillance of Soviet preparations in the Leningrad area and the northern part of the Baltic military district.

¹⁸The GCHQ-liaison man with FRA in the Venona-project was Wilfred Bodsworth, a veteran from Bletchley Park and personal friend of Sven Wäsström, responsible for special sensitive matters (that is cryptological liaison) at FRA. For the Swedish participation in the Venona project, see Wilhelm Agrell, Venona. Spåren från ett underrättelsekrig (Lund: Historiska Media 2003).

¹⁹The development of the US policy towards Sweden is dealt with by Charles Silva in his thesis, Keep Them Strong, Keep Them Friendly. Swedish-American Relations and the Pax Americana, 1948–1952 (Stockholm: Dept. of History 1999) and Simon S. Moores in his thesis ‘Neutral on our side’ (London: LSE, unpublished thesis 2004).

²⁰Thede Palm's own account of these personal conflicts is known through his posthumous brief memoirs Några studier till T-kontorets historia (Stockholm: Kungl. Samfundet för utgivande av handskrifter rörande Skandinaviens historia 1999). It is not known if Elmér has left any written account. He was questioned by the Neutralitetspolitikkommissionen in 1993 but died before Säkerhetstjänstkommissionen had the opportunity to question him.

²¹Agrell, Venona. Spåren från ett underrättelsekrig, 11–12.

²²Tage Erlander, Dagböcker 1950–51 (Hedemora: Gidlunds 2001).

²³The actions taken on the Soviet side are exceptionally well documented and openly published. Immediately after the downing the Soviet Air Force carried out an internal investigation against the commander of the Baltic Military District Air Defence Col. Sjinkarenko for acting without proper authorisation. Nothing came out of this and Sjinkarenko was swiftly promoted to general, indicating that the action indeed was sanctioned, if not by the Air Force then by Beria or Stalin. The Soviet documents were handed over to the Swedish authorities in the autumn 1991 and were published in Nedskjutningen av DC 3-an i juni 1952. Rapport från DC 3-utredningen (Stockholm: Utrikesdepartementet Ds 1992), 5. The wreck of the plane was finally located in the summer of 2003 and salvaged in 2004. A new commission is currently working on the remaining issues, first of all based on the material found in and around the wreck.

²⁴The airborne Elint collection only represented a small portion of the total surveillance. Most Elint coverage came from a number of ground stations, the most important of them two stations on Gotland. A very detailed account of the Elint and Comint collection in June 1952 is given in a recently (mistakenly) declassified report. Stockholm, Sverige, Krigsarkivet, Flygstaben, Centralexpeditionen Ö 2:6, Norra Östersjömarinens verksamhet 9–20 juni, Försvarsväsendets radioanstalt, sektion M 26/2 1953, KRA.

²⁵According to Swedlund's own account in his diary, Nordenskiöld had argued against the purchase of new planes with improved performance because then FRA would fly even further to the east to improve coverage.

²⁶Stockholm, Sverige, Krigsarkivet, Försvarstabens arkiv, Catalinaaffären, Diverse, PM angående incidenterna den 13/6 och 16/6, då två svenska militära flygplan sköts ner över Östersjön (hemlig) Fst sekt II, 20/6 1952.

²⁷Oddly enough Erlander writes FOA in his diary. FOA, the defence research agency, was also involved in the flights and the development of airborne sensors. It is possible that Swedlund and the Minister of Defence Torsten Nilsson managed to describe the flights as carried out by the less controversial FOA. It is also possible that Erlander did not even trust his diary with the correct reference. Erlander, Dagböcker 1950–51.

²⁸ Den militära underrättelsetjänsten, 112ff.