Limiting diplomatic friction: Sweden, the United States and SKF's ball bearing exports to Eastern Europe, 1950–52

Abstract

This article deals with the US government's efforts to curb the Swedish ball bearing producer SKF's exports to the East early in the Cold War, 1950–1952, and interprets this process within the framework of hegemony theory. In doing this, the article makes use of previously unutilised US archival material. The period up to mid-1951 saw increasing US pressure upon Sweden and SKF to consent to US hegemony by abiding by the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (CoCom) embargo. To achieve its objectives US policymakers developed a flexible ‘carrot and stick’ approach, and the article adds considerable detail regarding the US government's handling of SKF. US tolerance and flexibility was dependent upon Swedish consent to American hegemony in Western Europe, which was received through the signing of the Stockholm agreement – a hegemonic apparatus through which Sweden's abidance by the embargo was handled – in mid-June 1951. A small amount of exports was accepted by Washington as long as the main US objective – to deny the Eastern Bloc strategic technology – was adhered to by SKF. The article also reveals the lack of policy coordination in the Swedish government, and the conflicts between the government and SKF regarding the responsibility for adhering to the embargo.

Keywords:

• hegemony theory
• cold war
• trade
• SKF
• flexibility

Notes

1. The literature on the Cold War is far too immense to review in an article of this kind. For a penetrating analysis of the Truman administration's policies and the beginning of the Cold War, see Melvyn P. Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992).

2. The Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls, formally founded in January 1950, and based in Paris, France.

3. Sweden's economic integration into Western Europe and the trade embargo in the late 1940s and early 1950s has been dealt with by several authors, c.f. Charles Silva, ‘Keep Them Strong, Keep Them Friendly: Swedish-American Relations and the Pax Americana, 1948–1952’ (Stockholm: Ph.D. diss. 1999) 81–240, 305–318; Birgit Karlsson, Handelspolitik eller politisk handling. Sveriges handel med öststaterna 1946–1952 [Trade Policy or Political Trade: Sweden's Trade with the Eastern Bloc 1946–1952] (Göteborg: Ekonomisk-historiska institutionen, 1992); Birgit Karlsson, Att handla neutralt. Sverige och den ekonomiska integrationen i Västeurope 1948–1972 [To Trade Neutrally: Sweden and the Economic Integration into Western Europe, 1948–1972] (Göteborg: Ekonomisk-historiska institutionen, 2001); Mikael af Malmborg, Den ståndaktiga nationalstaten. Sverige och den västeuropeiska integrationen 1945–1959 [The Steadfast Nation State: Sweden and the Western European Integration, 1945–1959]. (Lund: Lund University Press, 1994); Ebba Dohlman, National Welfare and Economic Interdependence: The case of Sweden's Foreign Trade Policy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989); Christer Ahlström, Stockholmsöverenskommelsen rörande den svenska öst-väst-handeln – ett folkrättsligt bindande avtal? [The Stockholm Agreement Concerning the Swedish East-West Trade: A Binding Treaty According to International Law?] (Stockholm: Utrikespolitiska institutet, 1996). For a summary in English, see Mikael Nilsson and Niklas Stenlås, ‘Cold War Neutrality and Technological Dependence: Sweden's Military Technology and the East-West Trade’, in East-West Trade and the Cold War, ed. Jari Eloranta and Jari Ojala (Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä, 2005), 133–151.

4. For more, see Mikael Nilsson, Tools of Hegemony: Military Technology and Swedish-American Security Relations, 1945–1962 (Stockholm: Santérus Academic Press, 2007) 43–92, 176–255.

5. Gunnar Adler-Karlsson, Western Economic Warfare 1947–1967: A Case Study in Foreign Economic Policy (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1968), 23; Tor Egil F⊘rland, Cold Economic Warfare: The Creation and Prime of CoCom, 1948–1954 (Oslo: University of Oslo, 1991), 139–140; Alan P. Dobson, US Economic Statecraft for Survival 1933–1991: Of Sanctions, Embargoes and Economic Warfare (London: Routledge, 2002), 86–99; Ian Jackson, The Economic Cold War: America, Britain and East-West Trade, 1948–63 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), 11, 22–25.

6. Silva, ‘Keep Them Strong’, 307, based on af Malmborg, Den ståndaktiga, 121. Sweden's exports to the USSR, East Germany and Poland dropped from 7.5 per cent of total trade in 1950 to 4.9 per cent in 1953. However, Sweden's exports to Western Europe (the EFTA and EEC areas combined) increased from 62.2 to 66.1 per cent in the same period. Imports from Western Europe increased also, from 58.9 to 64.7 per cent, while imports from Eastern Europe declined from 7.1 to 3.9 per cent (af Malmborg, Den ståndaktiga, 121).

7. SOS Handel 1953 [Sweden's Official Foreign Trade Statistics], 36. See also Silva, ‘Keep Them Strong’, 307.

8. Karlsson, Handelspolitik, 52–83.

9. SOS Handel 1952, 31; SOS Handel 1954, 31.

10. SOS Handel 1954, 36.

11. SOS Handel 1954, 31.

12. af Malmborg, Den ståndaktiga, 122.

13. C.f. Silva, ‘Keep Them Strong’, 305–307. For the Swiss experience, see Klaus Ammann, ‘Swiss Trade with the East in the Early Cold War’, in East-West Trade and the Cold War, ed. Eloranta and Ojala, 113–132.

14. Nilsson, Tool of Hegemony, 176–255.

15. Karlsson, Handelspolitik, 100–102, 182–196. The embargo issue is mentioned only once in Martin Fritz and Birgit Karlsson, SKF–A Global Story 1907–2007 (Stockholm: Informationsförlaget, 2006) 176.

16. Göran Therborn, What Does the Ruling Class Do When It Rules? (London: Verso, 1980) 157; Jonathan Joseph, Hegemony: A Realist Analysis (London: Routledge, 2002), 19; Robert Bocock, Hegemony (London: Tavistock Publications, 1986), 21.

17. Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984); Stephen Gill (Ed.), Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); Raymond Williams, ‘Gramsci's Relevance for the Study of Race and Ethnicity’, Journal of Communication Inquiry 10 (1986): 5–27; Lee Artz and Bren Ortega Murphy, Cultural Hegemony in the United States (London: Sage Publications, 2000); Christine Buci-Glucksmann, Gramsci and the State (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1980); Peter M. Sánchez, Panama Lost? US Hegemony, Democracy, and the Canal (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2007); Armand Clesse and Patrick Karl O'Brien (Eds.), Two Hegemonies: Britain 1846–1914 and the United States 1941–2001 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002).

18. Geir Lundestad, The American ‘Empire’ and Other Studies of US Foreign Policy in a Comparative Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990); Thomas, J. McCormick, America's Half-Century: United States Foreign Policy in the Cold War and After (2nd edition) (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995); David P Calleo, Beyond American Hegemony: The Future of the Western Alliance (New York: Basic Books Inc., 1987), 14; John Krige, American Hegemony and the Postwar Reconstruction of Science in Europe (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006), 2, 255, 260. An unusual exception is John Agnew, Hegemony: The New Shape of Global Power (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2005).

19. Bocock, Hegemony, 11; Artz and Ortega Murhpy, Cultural Hegemony, viii, 1–70. See also Cox, Gramsci and Hegemony; Stephen Gill and David Law, ‘Global Hegemony and Structural Power of Capital’, in Gramsci, ed. Gill, 93; Dobson and Marsh, US Foreign Policy, 65.

20. Sánchez, Panama Lost?, 9.

21. R.O. Keohane,. and Joseph S. Nye, Power and Interdependence (3rd edition) (New York: Longman, 2001), 9.

22. Robert W. Cox, ‘Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations: An Essay’ in Method. Ed. Gill, Gramsci, 52.

23. Robert W. Cox, ‘Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations: An Essay’ in Method. Ed. Gill, Gramsci, 8.

24. Charles S. Maier, Hegemony and Autonomy within the Western Alliance, Eds. Melvyn P. Leffler and David S. Painter, Origins of the Cold War: An International History (London: Routledge, 1994), 155.

25. Maier, Hegemony and Autonomy, 155–157; Maier, The Politics of Productivity: Foundations of American International Economic Policy after World War II; Peter J. Katzenstein (Ed.) Between Power and Plenty: The Foreign Economic Policies of Advanced Industrial States (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978), 23–49.

26. Therborn, The Ideology of Power and the Power of Ideology (London: Verso, 1980), 95.

27. Artz and Ortega Murphy, Cultural Hegemony, 24–27, 39–45.

28. Keohane, After Hegemony, 137; Nye Keohane and Stanley Hoffman, After the Cold War: International Institutions and State Strategies in Europe, 1989–1991 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), 105.

29. C.f. Jacqueline McGlade, ‘CoCom and the Containment of Western Trade and Relations’, in East-West Trade, Eds. Eloranta and Ojala, 47–61; Dobson, US Economic Statecraft, 83–112; F⊘rland, Cold Economic Warfare.

30. Frank Cain, Economic Statecraft during the Cold War: European responses to the US trade embargo (London: Routledge, 2007), 14–26.

31. Cain, Economic Statecraft, 27–39; Jackson, The Economic Cold War, 73–89; Jürg Martin Gabriel, The American Conception of Neutrality after 1941 (London: MacMillan, 1988), 119; Silva, ‘Keep Them Strong’, 306.

32. Memorandum regarding export control, July 19 1949, pp. 2–3, in UD; 1920 års dossiersystem; HP 65 Ea; Box: 3109; Riksarkivet [henceforth: UD 3109].

33. F⊘rland, 'Foreign Policy Profiles of the Scandinavian Countries: Making Use of CoCom’, Scandinavian Journal of History, 19, no. 2 (1994), 176–177.

34. Legation in Prague to Undén, March 9, 1949, in UD; 1920 års dossiersystem; HP 64 Ea; Box: 2683; Riksarkivet [henceforth: UD 2683].

35. Gerard Aalders, and Cees Wiebes, The Art of Cloaking Ownership: The Secret Collaboration and Protection of the German War Industry by the Neutrals: The Case of Sweden (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1996), 71–91.

36. Embassy to Acheson, September 28, 1950, in RG 84; SSE; CGR, 1950–52; 511.2; Box No. 12; NARA II, College Park, MD, 1–2 [henceforth: NARA 84:[Box]12].

37. Tuthill to Hamberg, September 28, 1950, in NARA 84:12, 1.

38. Memorandum, December 16, 1950, in UD 2683. See also Karlsson, Handelspolitik, 183–184.

39. Memorandum, December 19, 1950, in ibid., 1–5. See also Karlsson, Handelspolitik, 184–186.

40. Memorandum, December 22, 1950, in RG 59; BNA, 1941–1953; SF, 1941–1953; South Africa, Union of, Policy – Sweden, External Political Affairs: U.S.; Box No. 18; NARA II, College Park, MD [henceforth: NARA 59:18]. See also Karlsson, Handelspolitik, 183–184.

41. Matthews to Burns, December 22, 1950, in NARA 59:18. See also Cain, Economic Statecraft, 11.

42. Memorandum, December 12, 1950, in UD 2683, 1–2. Boman to Belfrage, December 30, 1950, in ibid.; Box: 2684; Riksarkivet. For some of this, see also Karlsson, Handelspolitik, 183.

43. Stockholm to London, Paris, and Washington, January 6, 1951, in UD 3109. Hägglöf to Boman, January 8, 1951, in UD; 1920 års dossiersystem; HP 64 Ea; Box: 2684; Riksarkivet [henceforth: UD 2684]. See also Karlsson, Handelspolitik, 185; Bengt Nilson, ‘No Coal Without Iron Ore: Anglo–Swedish Trade Relations in the Shadow of the Korean War’ in Scandinavian Journal of History, 16, No. 1 (1991): 53–54. The tripartite agreement (US, Britain and France) implemented firmer restrictions on bearing exports prior to a decision within CoCom.

44. Memorandum, January 5, 1951, in UD 2684. See also Karlsson, Handelspolitik, 174–175.

45. Memorandum, January 9, 1951, in UD 2684. See also Karlsson, Handelspolitik, 185.

46. Karlsson, Handelspolitik, 183–187.

47. Karlsson, Handelspolitik, 185.

48. Memorandum, January 5, 1951, in UD 2684. See also Karlsson, Handelspolitik, 174–175.

49. Memorandum, January 6, 1951, in UD 2684, 2–3. See also Karlsson, Handelspolitik, 174–175.

50. Boheman to Hammarskjöld, January 12, 1951, in UD 2684, 1–3.

51. Hammarskjöld to Swedish Minister in Bern, January 15, 1951, in ibid., 1–2.

52. Boheman to Foreign Ministry, January 17, 1951, in ibid.

53. Cabinet to Swedish Embassies in London, Paris, and Washington, January 28, 1951, in ibid., 1–3. See also Karlsson, Handelspolitik, 175; Nilson, ‘No Coal’, 54. Nilson concludes that the government was prepared to abide by the tripartite formula; however, this does not seem like a tenable conclusion considering the further wrangling over the issue during the spring of 1951. It is also clear that the Americans did not interpret things this way.

54. Memorandum, January 30, 1951, in UD 2684, 1–2. See also Karlsson, Handelspolitik, 175. Bengt Nilson has come to the opposite conclusion saying that 'The three Western powers were satisfied by the Swedish reply,’ (Nilson, ‘No Coal’, 55).

55. Hägglöf to Boheman, February 2, 1951, in UD 2684, 1–2. See also Karlsson, Handelspolitik, 186.

56. Memorandum, February 2, 1951, in UD 2684, 2–3.

57. Memorandum, February 2, 1951, in UD 2684, 3.

58. Memorandum, February 2, 1951, in UD 2684, 3–7. For Romania and China, see Boman to Stockholm, February 6, 1951, in ibid., 3. For some of this, see also Karlsson, Handelspolitik, 186.

59. Boheman to Hammarskjöld, February 2, 1951, in UD 2684, 1–3. For State Department's view of the Swedish attitude as unchanged, see also Karlsson, Handelspolitik, 176.

60. Mission Action Program for the ECA Special Mission to Sweden, February 2, 1951, in RG 469, 1948–61; SRE; DPD; SF, 1950–52; Programs: Economic, UK-Military, UK; Box No. 19; NARA II, College Park, MD, 4.

61. Boman to Foreign Ministry, February 6, 1951, in UD 2684, 2. Boman to Foreign Ministry, February 10, 1951, in ibid. Hamberg to Hägglöf, February 10, 1951, in ibid., 1. For some of this, see also Karlsson, Handelspolitik, 187–188.

62. Memorandum, February 21, 1951, in UD 2684, 1–2.

63. Memorandum, February 21, 1951, in UD 2684, 2.

64. Memorandum, February 21, 1951, in ibid., 1–3.

65. Hägglöf to de Besche, February 21, 1951, in ibid.; de Besche to Cabinet, March 6, 1951, in ibid.

66. Winther to Hamnström, March 6, 1951; Hägglöf to Boheman, March 14, 1951, in ibid. See also Karlsson, Handelspolitik, 188. The figure SEK 26.8 million included SEK 4.3 million worth of exports to Finland.

67. Memorandum, March 7, 1951, in UD 2684, 3–5.

68. Memorandum, March 7, 1951, in UD 2684, 4–5.

69. Memorandum, March 16, 1951, in ibid., 1–2. For some of this, see also Karlsson, Handelspolitik, 176; Nilson, ‘No Coal’, 55–56.

70. Memorandum, March 17, 1951, in UD 2684, 1–2; Memorandum, March 22, 1951, in ibid., 1. For some of this, see also Karlsson, Handelspolitik, 176.

71. Memorandum, April 9, 1951, in UD 2684, 1–2; Memorandum, April 9, 1951, in ibid., 1.

72. Memorandum from the allies, April 18, 1951, in ibid., 1–3; Memorandum by Hägglöf, April 18, 1951, in ibid, 2. See also Karlsson, Handelspolitik, 188–189.

73. Memorandum by Hägglöf, April 18, 1951, in ibid., 2–3.

74. Memorandum, April 19, 1951, in ibid., 1–2.

75. Belfrage to Hägglöf, March 9, 1951; Cabinet to Embassy in Washington, March 9, 1951, in UD; 1920 års dossiersystem; HP 64 Ep; Box: 2755; Riksarkivet [henceforth: UD 2755], 1–2; 1–2,

76. Boman to Hägglöf, May 9, 1951, in UD; 1920 års dossiersystem; HP 64 Ea; Box: 2685; Riksarkivet [henceforth: UD 2685].

77. Hägglöf to de Besche, May 11, 1951, in ibid. See also Karlsson, Handelspolitik, 189.

78. Memorandum, June 30, 1951; Engzell to Belfrage, June 27, 1951, in UD 2755.

79. Embassy in Stockholm to Embassy in Paris, July 10, 1951, in NARA 84:9.

80. Hägglöf to von Sydow, July 5, 1951, in UD 3109.

81. Memorandum, July 16, 1951, p. 2, in UD; 1920 års dossiersystem; H 77 V; Box: 1971; Riksarkivet.

82. Embassy in Paris to Hägglöf, July 10, 1951, in UD 3109.

83. For the text, see Memorandum, June 15, 1951, in UD 2685. The Alphand formula stipulated that exceptions to the embargo regulations could be made if they were vital for the economy, subsequent to a consultation in CoCom (Memorandum, May 29 1951, in ibid.).

84. Memorandum, July 18, 1951, pp. 1–3, in ibid.

85. Embassy in Paris to Embassy in Stockholm, July 23, 1951, in NARA 84:9.

86. FRUS; Foreign Relations of the United States; 1950; Vol. III; Western Europe. (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1974), 1236.

87. Hägglöf to Boman, August 11, 1951, in UD 2685. See also Karlsson, Handelspolitik, 189.

88. Memorandum, August 15, 1951, pp. 1–2, in UD 2755.

89. Hammarskjöld to Butterworth, October 8, 1951, in UD; 1920 års dossiersystem; HP 64 Ep; Box: 2756; Riksarkivet [henceforth: UD 2756].

90. Malmæus to Boman, October 8, 1951, in ibid.

91. Butterworth to Styles, October 20, 1951, in NARA 84:9, 1. See also Memorandum, October 19, 1951, in UD 2756. For the Polish threat, see Memorandum no. 2, October 12, 1951, in ibid., 2, 4, 6.

92. Memorandum, October 19, 1951, in ibid., 1–2, 4–5.

93. Memorandum, October 19, 1951, in ibid., 2.

94. Memorandum, October 19, 1951, in ibid., 6.

95. Memorandum, October 19, 1951, in ibid., 6–8.

96. Butterworth to Styles, October 20, 1951, in NARA 84:9, 1; Embassy in Stockholm to Acheson, October 25, 1951, in ibid., 1–2; Styles to Embassy in Stockholm, October 24, 1951, in ibid., 1–2.

97. Embassy in Geneva to Embassy in Stockholm, October 24, 1951, in ibid.

98. Embassy in Stockholm to Secretary of State, October 25, 1951, in ibid., 1–2. See also Styles to Embassy in Stockholm, October 24, 1951, in ibid., 1–2.

99. Styles to Embassy in Stockholm, October 24, 1951, in ibid., 2.

100. Cabinet to Swedish Embassy in Washington, October 20, 1951, in UD 2756.

101. Memorandum no. 6, Nov. 7 1951, in ibid., 3.

102. Belfrage to Hamberg, November 10, 1951, in ibid.

103. Karlsson, Handelspolitik, 195.

104. Karlsson and Fritz, SKF – A Global Story, 123–200.

105. Karlsson and Fritz, SKF – A Global Story, 123–126, 128–129, 145–146, 175.

106. For more, see: Dobson, US Economic Statecraft.