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Original Articles

Backlash of the Free World: the US presence at the World Youth Festival in Helsinki, 1962

Pages 230-255 | Published online: 25 May 2011
 

Abstract

The Soviet-sponsored World Festival of Youth and Students brought an exceptional number of US citizens to Helsinki in the summer of 1962. The event was made important by the fact that it took place in neutral territory. Furthermore, this event briefly made Helsinki a centre of extensive Cold War operations. This article examines the background and impact of this festival in the larger context of the Cold War and international relations. The timing of the festival is especially intriguing, between two major Cold War confrontations, the Berlin crisis of 1961 and the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962. However, instead of being an open conflict between warring parties, the festival reminds us of other conflicts of the cultural Cold War: it was waged through front organizations. Both the KGB and CIA were involved behind the scenes deploying their representatives and trying to impact the Finns' – but also the other festival delegates' – thinking, and win them over to their respective causes. This article exploits both Finnish and American archival sources, mostly intelligence reports from the festival. Apart from the festival in Helsinki, therefore, this article illustrates the way in which Finland was subjected to political and cultural influencing by the superpowers during the height of the Cold War.

Notes

1 One of the more influential examples of the new, so-called cultural approach to the Cold War has been Frances Stonor Saunders’ Who Paid the Piper? from 1999 as it has been followed by a number of studies examining deeply the connections between states and cultural institutions as well as individuals. Other monographs important in this respect include Hixson, Parting the Curtain, Caute, The Dancer Defects and Richmond, Cultural Exchange and the Cold War. All of these books raise culture as an important factor in the Cold War which has been mostly overlooked in broader researches. Common for all these studies is that they perceive the cultural Cold War from a western point of view. The cultural Cold War was perhaps more built-in into the Soviet system and cultural institutions, and generally integrated as part of the Soviet policies. In this respect, the Cold War years did not bring any drastic change in the Soviet policies, at least not to begin with. Cultural influencing and mass persuasion of foreign populations had been used on a large scale for 30 years when the Cold War started in the late 1940s. Institutions like VOKS (Central Organ of Cultural Ties with Foreign Countries) which supervised all the foreign connections of Soviet cultural institutions, but also exercised cultural influencing to foreign political ends. The Soviet Union also pioneered in radio broadcasts abroad. However, comprehensive studies in English about Soviet cultural influencing hardly exist. The few individual studies include Barghoorn, The Soviet Cultural Offensive dating from 1960 and Gould-Davies’ Citation2003 article ‘The Logic of Soviet Cultural Diplomacy’. For articles on Soviet responses to American cultural influencing, see Reid, Who Will Beat Whom? and Mikkonen, ‘Stealing the Monopoly of Knowledge?’. Generally on Soviet capabilities in mass persuasion, see Kenez, Birth of the Propaganda State.

2 Hautmann, ‘Die Weltjugendfestspiele’; Kotek, Students and the Cold War; Krekola, ‘Helsingin nuorisofestivaali kylmän sodan maailmankartalla’; Rossow, ‘Rote Ohren, roter Mohn’; Taylor, ‘Socialist Orchestration of Youth’.

3 Koivunen, ‘The 1957 Moscow Youth Festival’; Roth-Ey, ‘ “Loose girls” on the loose?’.

4 There have been a number of recent studies that examine the relationship between the American authorities and their front organizations that implemented the psychological and political warfare plans of the CIA. While CIA was, in most cases, behind the US campaigns involving propaganda and covert actions, it was often based overt institutions that were publicly free of government control, but in essence financed and administered by the CIA. Such organizations include the Free Europe Committee that was behind the Radio Free Europe, as well as American Committee on Liberation from Bolshevism that controlled the Radio Liberty. Perhaps the best study of CIA's front organizations is offered in Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer. Scott-Smith and Krabbendam, The Cultural Cold War in Western Europe 1945–1960, offers more detailed articles on Western intelligence and youth organizations. About the origins of Radio Liberty and Free Europe, see for example: Mickelson, America's Other Voice; Critchlow, Radio Hole-in-the-Head; Sosin, Sparks of Liberty; Puddington, Broadcasting Freedom.

5 The Hoover Institution Archives (HIA) hold an extensive collection of materials produced by US government-related organizations that were involved in efforts to affect the Soviet Union. Perhaps the most important of these was the Radio Liberty, corporate archives of which are stored at HIA as part of the RFE/RL archives (Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty were merged in the mid-70s). Apart from radio work, they offer plenty of information about CIA's relations with psychological and political warfare units, some of which were involved in the festivals, as well.

6 The World Assembly of Youth (WAY), 1948; the International Student Conference (ISC), 1950; Coordinating Secretariat of the International Student Conference (COSEC), 1952. Kotek, Students and the Cold War, 125–89; Aldrich, ‘Putting Culture into the Cold War’; Paget, ‘From Stockholm to Leiden’; on CIA's involvement, see also Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer, 123–48.

7 Kotek, Students and the Cold War, 198–9.

8 Roth-Ey, ‘ “Loose Girls” on the Loose?’ 75–95; Koivunen, ‘The 1957 Moscow Youth Festival’, 46–65.

9 Rosenberg, Soviet-American Relations, 168–70.

10 Westad, The Global Cold War, 71–2; Zubok and Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin's Cold War, 184–5.

11 Kotek, Students and the Cold War, 217–21; Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer, 137–41. In the meantime, US officials responsible for propaganda worriedly remarked on the appeal of the Soviet story in the third world. Osgood, Total Cold War, 113.

12 Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer; Osgood, Total Cold War, 96–8.

13 Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer, 142; Fields, Winning Finnish Hearts and Minds, 237–328.

14 Meyer, Facing Reality, 86–94; Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer, 141, 237–48.

15 Hautmann, ‘Die Weltjugendfestspiele 1959 in Wien’. Hans Hautmann, who now serves as a professor of contemporary history at the University of Linz, participated at the age of 16 in the Vienna festival.

16 Fritz Molden, publisher of the Austrian Presse, ex-communist Christian Broda, who later would become minister of Justice, Klaus Dohrn, banker Georg Fürstenberg, C. D. Jackson, Foreign Minister Bruno Kreisky, and Peter Strasser from Sozialistischen Jugend der Österreich. Hautmann, ‘Die Weltjugendfestspiele 1959 in Wien’, 4.

17 Hautmann, ‘Die Weltjugendfestspiele 1959 in Wien’, 5.

18 Boris Nicolaevsky, a well-known Soviet émigré who had an important role in creating the initial policies for RL, emphasized that while criticizing Soviet policies, they should also concentrate on providing what was lacking in the Soviet Union, truthful information, religious programming, culture, and also topical information about Western countries, which would testify to the West's supremacy over the Soviet system; see: HIA, Boris Nicolaevsky collection, box 424.7. ‘Guidelines for Radio Liberation's Programming’. The RL actively used religion as a means of appealing to certain segments of the population. When Soviet travellers mentioned the RL, they quite often praised its religious programmes. See, for example: HIA, RFE/RL Box (b.) 564, file 8. Target Area Listener Report (TALR) # 34 – 66. 9 May 1966.

19 Osgood, Total Cold War, 76–8. A somewhat opposing view is presented in Rosenberg, Soviet-American Relations. His hypothesis is that Eisenhower's presidency started the process towards détente and the move away from psychological warfare towards cultural diplomacy and exchange. While this is certainly true, the first Eisenhower administration saw psychological warfare and covert operations as the most important ways of countering and answering the Soviet threat. Only towards the late 1950s did cultural exchange and other bilateral methods start to supplant covert action. Even then, covert methods were hardly abandoned. In fact cultural exchange and covert operations existed side by side as the principal methods of different government sectors, with the State Department leaning increasingly towards ‘soft’ methods.

20 C. D. Jackson effectively created and coordinated the Eisenhower administration's psychological strategy. He led the work of a committee (among the first set up by Eisenhower after his election) to establish the policy for updating the US strategy of psychological warfare. E.g. Osgood, Total Cold War, 77–8.

21 Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer, 141–3.

22 Stern, Gloria Steinem, 115–19.

23 As an example of one occasion, a member of the RL's Turkmen desk ran into a Soviet Turkmen from the local Komsomol. See: HIA, RFE/RL b. 554.3. Regime Reaction Report # 31 – 59. 27 August 1959.

24 Puddington, Broadcasting Freedom, 170–1; Mikkonen, ‘Radio Liberty’.

25 HIA, RFE/RL b. 529. 4. Background report # 38 – 59. 18 August 1959.

26 Hautmann, ‘Die Weltjugendfestspiele 1959 in Wien’, 5–8.

27 Hautmann, ‘Die Weltjugendfestspiele 1959 in Wien’, 5–8.

28 Stern, Gloria Steinem, 119–21; Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer, 144–6. See also, Report on the Vienna Youth Festival, 33.

29 Report on the Vienna Youth Festival, 41–2.

30 Bischof, ‘Two Sides of the Coin’, 156–8.

31 The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), College Park. Record Group 273. NSC 6024, ‘U.S. Policy toward Finland’, 30 December 1960.

32 NARA. NSC 6024, ‘U.S. Policy toward Finland’, 30 December 1960.

33 J. F. Kennedy Presidential Library, National Security. Box 70, Finland, Kekkonen visit 10/16/61–10/17/61. Background paper, Cultural exchange program with Finland. Thanks to Jukka Rislakki for the copy of this document.

34 SYL (Suomen ylioppilaskuntien liitto) was, and is, the leading interest organization of Finnish university students.

35 SYL News Letter III/1960/December; Independent Research Service Bulletin, 1 February Citation1961.

36 Sedergren, ‘Kylmän sodan kulttuuripolitiikkaa II’.

37 Archives of the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). 67 U kirjeenvaihto 1. Urho Kekkosen päiväkirjat 1, 1958–62, 404. Pääministeri Sukselainen STT:lle 17.2.1961.

38 Ylioppilaslehti 24.2.1962. The journalists present were from this student magazine and the communist newspaper Kansan Uutiset.

39 Sedergren, ‘Kylmän sodan kulttuuripolitiikkaa II’.

40 Vesikansa, ‘Kommunismi uhkaa maatamme’, 214–18; The People's Archives (PA), Helsinki. 1B SKP 1944–. SKP pol. tmk. ptk 27.12.1961.

41 Kekkonen was president from 1956 until 1981. About the Note Crisis, see e.g. Jakobson, Pelon ja toivon aika, 313–14; Kallenautio, Suomi kylmän rauhan maailmassa, 139–43.

42 NARA, RG 84, HEF 1962, Box 12, 350.21 Communist movement – Finland. Gufler's telegram to the Secretary of State, 11.4.1962; thanks to Olli Ainola for the copy of this document.

43 Ibid.

44 Telegram from the Embassy of Finland (Gufler) to the Department of State, 4.6.1962. Foreign Relations of the United States Online, 1961–1963 Eastern Europe, XVI, Document 223.

45 An interview with Harry Mildh, 14 June 1994, Joni Krekola.

46 HIA, RFE/RL, b. 564.2. TALR # 59 – 62. 18 August 1962.

47 MFA, 67 U kirjeenvaihto 3. Suojelupoliisi: Maailman Nuorison ja Ylioppilaiden 8. Rauhan ja Ystävyyden Festivaali Helsingissä 29.7.–6.8.1962, 8.

48 Communist Youth Activities, 1833.

49 Davis, Autobiography, 121–2; Rossow, ‚Rote Ohren’, 257.

50 Stern, Gloria Steinem, 291–306.

51 Meyer, Facing Reality, 103; Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer, 146.

52 Americans often faced persistent questions and accusations about racial inequality when they met people from the Soviet orbit. The Soviet and other East European delegations were trained to attack the weak points in US culture and government policies. Racial inequality was one such typical issue about which delegations to the festival had to be trained to respond properly; Soviet propaganda commonly depicted the United States as the land of constant lynching, comparing it to South Africa. In an interview with an American exchange student returning from the Soviet Union, the student observed that he had been constantly asked about the lynching of Negroes in America; see: HIA, RFE/RL b. 529.4. Background Report # 37 – 59. 13 August 1959.

53 MFA, 67 U, kirjeenvaihto 3. Nuorisofestivaalit Suomessa, amerikkalaista vastapropagandaa. Washingtonin lähetystö ulkoministeriön poliittiselle osastolle 27.7.1962, sähkejäljennös.

54 HIA, RFE/RL b. 564.2. TALR # 51 – 62. 14 August 1962.

55 Caute, The Dancer Defects, 556–60; Sedergren, ‘Kylmän sodan kulttuuripolitiikkaa’.

56 Majander, ‘Jazz ja kylmän sodan kulttuuririntamat’, 46–9; Sedergren ‘Kylmän sodan kulttuuripolitiikkaa II’.

57 J. F. Kennedy Presidential Library. National Security, Box 70, Finland general 5/62–11/63. Helsinki Youth News 28.7.1962, Alexander Garvin's interview. CIA report to President Kennedy's foreign affairs adviser William Bundy, former CIA analyst, 30.7.1962. Thanks to Jukka Rislakki for the copy of this document.

58 Helsinki Youth News 29.7.1962; Sedergren, ‘Kylmän sodan kulttuuripolitiikkaa’.

59 Sam Antupit's comment. Stern, Gloria Steinem, 129–30, 459, note 130.

60 PA, 1 B SKP 1944–. Alustava yhteenveto festivaalien vastaisesta toiminnasta. Erkki Tuominen, 8.8.1962. Liite SKP:n pol. tmk pöytäkirjaan 9.8.1962.

61 Stern, Gloria Steinem, 130; Sigmund, ‘Helsinki – The Last Youth Festival?’, 60–1.

62 HIA, RFE/RL, b. 564.3. TALR # 79 – 62. 31 August 1962.

63 Sedergren, ‘Kylmän sodan kulttuuripolitiikkaa’.

64 MFA, 67 U kirjeenvaihto 3. Suojelupoliisi: Maailman Nuorison ja Ylioppilaiden 8. Rauhan ja Ystävyyden Festivaali Helsingissä 29.7. –6.8.1962, 13.

65 Archive of the Finnish Secret Police, 7 E 2. Lindfors and Rislakki, CIA, 387. Ylietsivä Alpo Neuvosen raportti Mathilde-laivalta, 2.8.1962. About the American delegation, see Communist Youth Activities, 1819.

66 A. Pumpyansky [On Friendship and a Certain ‘Service’] in Komsomolskaya Pravda 23 May 1965. See also: HIA, RFE/RL, b. 323.3. Regime Reaction Report # 10–65, 26 May 1965.

67 Suomi, Presidentti, 41–3.

68 MFA, 67 U kirjeenvaihto 3.Suojelupoliisi: Maailman Nuorison ja Ylioppilaiden 8. Rauhan ja Ystävyyden Festivaali Helsingissä 29.7.–6.8.1962, 16–17.

69 S. Pavlov [Peace and Friendship is the festival's Password] in Komsomolskaya Pravda 25 July 1962. The writer was the leader of the Soviet delegation to Helsinki.

70 See especially forthcoming article Mikkonen, ‘Stealing the Monopoly of Knowledge?’.

71 See for example: Carl Svesson [Beware: provocateurs] in Izvestia. 29 July 1962; I. Melnikov, [Mr. Ralis's ‘Dead Rats’ – Face to Face with the American Intelligence Agent] in Izvestia August 24, 1962. Melnikov was mentioned as a special correspondent of Novosti press; V. Ganyushkin and L. Kuznetsov [The ‘Heroes of Darkness’ Failed] in Komsomolskaya Pravda. 7 September 1962.

72 Sosin, Sparks of Liberty, 282.

73 HIA, RFE/RL, b. 564.2. TALR # 77 – 62. 29 August 1962; HIA, RFE/RL, b. 564.3. TALR # 81 – 62. August 31, 1962; – TALR # 80 – 62. August 31, 1962; – TALR # 79 – 62. 31 August 1962.

74 A good description of how ARD interviewers operated is provided by Max Ralis when he describes the methods of his department to the RL's director of the radio programming division. HIA, RFE/RL, b. 529.3. Max Ralis: ‘Some aspects of the audience research department's field work at the Brussels’ World Fair’. See also: Mickelson, America's Other Voice, 210–1.

75 HIA, RFE/RL, b. 564.3. TALR # 83 – 62. 27 August 1962.

76 HIA, RFE/RL, b. 564.2. TALR # 59 – 62. 18 August 1962.

77 HIA, RFE/RL, b. 564.2. TALR # 69 – 62. 20 August 1962.

78 Hentilä, Harppi-Saksan haarukassa, 101.

79 A very biased evaluation of NTS's aims can be found in their own publication: NTS, 1–17. There is also a monograph about NTS, which, although more balanced, still gives quite favourable image of NTS: Young, House of Secrets, 14–18.

80 Archive of the Finnish Secret Police, 7 E 2. P.M. Suojelupoliisin toimenpiteet Helsingin festivaalien varalta, Armas Alhava 31.7.1962.

81 HIA, RFE/RL, b. 564.2. TALR # 51 – 62. 14 August 1962; – TALR # 68 – 62. August 20, 1962; HIA, RFE/RL, b. 564.3. TALR # 79 – 62. 31 August 1962.

82 HIA, RFE/RL, b. 564.2. TALR # 51 – 62. 14 August 1962.

83 HIA, RFE/RL, b. 564.3. TALR # 108 – 62. 31 October 1962.

84 Sigmund, ‘Helsinki – The Last Youth Festival?’ 58–62.

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