Sweden's Squandered Life-Line to the West, by Robert Dalsjö

About 15 years ago it was revealed that ostensibly neutral or non-aligned Sweden not only based parts of its Cold War security policy on the expectation that the Western powers would provide military assistance in case of a Soviet attack. In addition, the cabinet had also secretly authorised the military authorities to undertake preparations for this event, and a number of measures had been taken. Sensational, but credible, reports to this effect by researchers and journalists triggered the appointment of an official commission, the Commission on Neutrality Policy (CNP). The CNP’s report confirmed and expanded many of the initial findings. It showed that, like a medieval castle, the fortress of neutrality had indeed had a secret passage to the outside, as a fall-back option in case neutrality failed. The main task of the Swedish armed forces, had Sweden been attacked by the Soviet Union, would have been to hold out until help arrived. Swedish authorities, with the approval of the cabinet, had undertaken preparations to facilitate the reception of such assistance, and had maintained covert military ties to their Western counterparts. Among the steps taken were the extension of runways at Swedish airbases to accommodate allied bombers, technical and procedural measures to facilitate overflights, the designation of military liaison teams to be sent to allied headquarters (HQs) and capitals, and the installation of secure means of communications between allied and Swedish HQs. With Norway and Denmark, combined plans had also been worked out for the wartime coordination of air surveillance, and for the use of signals and ciphers, among other things.[1]

The CNP’s report triggered a rather heated debate, which has been going on intermittently since then, stoked from time to time by new findings by researchers, journalists, and a government-appointed investigator.[2] This debate has at times had the character of a Historikerstreit, although only a minority of the participants have been historians or scholars. At the centre of the debate, at least emotionally, has been the issues of Sweden’s real security-political status during the Cold War, of whether the secret and public aspects of policy were in consonance, and of the governing Social Democrats’ use of neutrality policy as a tool to discipline the domestic opposition. Critics have charged that Sweden covertly relied on a security guarantee from Nato, that the government secretly violated the policy of neutrality it so emphatically propagated in public, and that the government played dirty by scolding the opposition for suggesting preparatory measures that fell far short of  what the government had authorised sub rosa.[3] Supporters of the old policy have rallied to repair a more traditional image of Sweden’s stance during the Cold War, by downplaying the extent and significance of the revelations made, and by re-interpreting official statements in a manner which would allow for the preparations actually undertaken. They have indignantly denied charges of hypocrisy and double-dealing, as well as that  Prime Minister Tage Erlander misled Parliament and the public by his 1959 statement, which categorically ruled out ‘[p]reparations and consultations for military cooperation with members of a great power military alliance’.[4]

 

Two Problems

In the tumult of the debate, a number of issues of great significance for the understanding of Sweden’s recent past had fallen by the wayside. One of these concerns the character and extent of Sweden’s covert cooperation with the West after 1969. The CNP’s remit covered only the period from 1949 to 1969.[5] However, as journalists and researchers following up on the CNP’s work showed that preparations for wartime cooperation with the West had indeed continued into the 1970s and 1980s, pressure grew for the appointment of a new commission. The government blocked such demands, but when it looked as if there might be a parliamentary majority for, the government made a tactical retreat, by adding a rider to the task already given to Ambassador Rolf Ekéus to study the government’s management of the submarine intrusions. Ekéus was now also to ‘conduct a general security-policy scrutiny of Sweden’s political and military actions’ 1969-1989.[6]

Ekéus has a distinguished record of international service, but his efforts as a one-man investigator of the recent past has been mired in controversy from the start. The report on the submarine intrusions received sharp criticism, and this was also the case with the report on security policy, which has been strongly criticised for pro-governmental bias and for sloppy research.[7] The latter report is the result of a major effort, and it is in several ways an interesting document, containing several significant findings. However, a closer examination, and – when possible – a comparison with the original sources largely bears the critics out.[8] Ekéus’ basic message is that Sweden’s security policy was overall handled well and wisely by the successive governments, that technical cooperation with the US was more extensive than previously known, but that there were hardly any preparations for wartime cooperation with the West after 1970, and that the government’s words and deeds thus were in consonance.[9] However, the assertion that that nothing really happened after 1970 does not seem credible in the light of a number of strong indications that preparations for wartime cooperation continued into the 1970s and 1980s.[10] There was, and is, thus a need to look into that period in a systematic, scholarly and open-minded manner.

Another open issue concerns why and how the preparations for reception of help from the West stagnated from the mid 1960s, and finally died out in the mid-1980s. At that time, the supreme military commander (Swedish: Överbefälhavaren, ÖB) Lennart Ljung arranged for most of what remained of plans and other documents concerning wartime cooperation with the West to be destroyed, and he saw to it that officers coming in to top positions were not informed on what had been. This applied even to his own successor, Bengt Gustafsson. Also at the political level, the institutional memory was severed at that time, as Defence Minister Anders Thunborg resigned, and Palme was murdered.

The link to the West was thought as a national life-line in case the policy of neutrality failed. The CNP found that ‘…it would have been irreconcilable with the responsibility resting with Sweden’s political and military leadership, had no measures been taken to facilitate the reception of assistance from the Western great powers.’[11] Thunborg meant that it was a matter of planning for ‘the country’s survival as a nation’.[12] Still, this nation’s life-line was allowed to wither and disappear, and this at a time – the late 1970s up to the mid-1980s –  when the threat of war increased, and Sweden’s own defences were weakened. Why?

 

Four Possible Explanations

The question of why and how Sweden’s secret life-line to the West was lost lies at the centre of my doctoral thesis, which now is available as a book, with the title Life-Line Lost.[13] There seem to be four possible explanations to this:

• that the Swedish government consciously decided to end the preparations;

• that the Western powers (in effect the US) decided that Sweden should not get any help;

• that changes in the politico-military situation made help unnecessary; and

• that the public image of neutrality policy developed in a manner which made it too sensitive and politically dangerous to keep up the preparations.

As concerns the first explanation, neither I nor any other researcher have found any signs of such a decision. On the contrary, in the early 1990s Thunborg believed that the preparations were still in place, despite the fact that Ljung had closed most of them down during Thunborg’s time as minister for defence (1983-1985).[14] Ekéus’ assertion that the cabinet ‘banned’ preparations for wartime military cooperation with the West has turned out to be based only on the fact that Palme in 1970 started to repeat Erlander’s 1959 statement which categorically ruled out preparations or consultations for military cooperation with members of a great-power alliance.[15] However, public doctrinal statements hardly suffice as proof of a decision to end the preparations, as the cabinet had shown repeatedly during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s that it could secretly condone measures that it condemned in public.

As concerns the second explanation, it would not seem unnatural if Sweden’s highly public scolding of America’s role in Vietnam would have made Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon decide to the let the Swedes stew in their own juice, if the Soviets attacked. Why should American pilots risk their lives to save Sweden, which had compared their bombing of Vietnam to Nazi death camps? But there are no sign of such a US decision. On the contrary, interviews with former senior officials in Washington show that the US was prepared to assist Sweden militarily, even during the years when political relations were ice cold.[16]

The explanation which ties changes in the extent and intensity of preparations to fluctuations in the politico-military situation might work for the period from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, when preparations for cooperation with the West stagnated as détente blossomed. But it does not fit well for the period up to the mid-1960s, and not at all for the years 1979-1985. International tension rose drastically during these years, and many saw an increased direct threat to Sweden, tied to submarine intrusions and suchlike. Moreover, the strength of Sweden’s own armed forces declined during these years, while the USSR’s military strength grew. Still, Sweden’s covert preparations for cooperation with the West were not expanded or intensified – they were closed down. Thus this explanation falls too.

There is thus only one possible explanation remaining, i.e. that the publicly projected image of Sweden’s policy of neutrality and its international position developed in a manner which made it too difficult and too politically dangerous to maintain and develop the preparations for the reception of military help from the West. Over time, the contrast became too big between the secret ties to the West, on the one side, and an increasingly dogmatic and morally charged official policy, on the other. As an ideological notion of neutrality, which included equidistance to the two power blocs, turned into something of a meta-ideology and part of national identity, the maintenance of secret security ties to the West as a pragmatic reserve option became too dangerous, and the preparations withered and died.

 

Aim and Avenue of Approach

The aim of my book is to establish the extent of Sweden’s covert preparations for wartime military cooperation with the Western powers during the Cold War, as far as is possible at this time, and to explain why these preparations waned and eventually ended. In order to fulfil the latter aim, the only remaining explanation, outlined above, is subjected to detailed scrutiny, too see whether it holds, should be amended, or should be discarded. This is accomplished by first studying the evolution of the official image of Sweden’s policy and international position (i.e. declaratory doctrine) from 1949 to 1989. Such an analytic survey has not been made before, and I can present a number of new findings, concerning both facts and interpretation. Then, the evolution of  the covert preparations for military cooperation with the West is traced for the same time-period, encompassing not only the actual measures taken, but also the role that the Western factor played in Swedish military strategy and plans, and how these issues were handled by the military and political leadership. Also on this aspect can I present a number of new findings, both factual and analytic. Finally, the two parallel evolutions are compared, with a special eye to indications of consonance and causal links – or the lack thereof – before conclusions are drawn.

 

The Evolution of Doctrine 1949-1989

The survey of doctrine shows that the government in 1949 and 1950 made public statements which seemed to rule out of any form preparations for military cooperation with members of a great power military alliance.[17] However, in the statement from 1950, Foreign Minister Östen Undén had inserted a small semantic loophole, which allowed for certain forms of contacts and preparations, but this loophole was hardly noted, except by those who had been prompted about its existence.[18] Otherwise, the doctrine of the 1950s can be characterised as ‘pragmatic non-alignment’, with the aim of keeping the country – if possible – out of a new war between the great powers. There was room for differing interpretations of doctrine, and there was clearly a striving to avoid statements on how the country would act in case of a war. Defence-related doctrine stated clearly that help from abroad was needed and expected in case Sweden was attacked.[19]

In 1959, during a domestic political squabble over foreign and security policy, which has been labelled the ‘Hjalmarson affair’,[20] the government made doctrine more restrictive on several points. It was not just the fact that Erlander in three major speeches and a pamphlet categorically ruled out ‘[p]reparations and consultations for military cooperation with members of a great power military alliance’ as incompatible with neutrality policy. Ruling out such measures was part of a larger transformation from a pragmatic policy of non-alignment to a more programmatic (some might say dogmatic) policy of neutrality.[21] Reassuring outside powers (in reality, the USSR) that Sweden would apply strict neutrality in case of a war, and maintaining the ‘credibility’ of neutrality, were elevated to paramountcy. This was said to call for ‘consistency and firmness’ in the execution of policy, as well as for defence in all directions. Furthermore, demands for conformity in the domestic debate on foreign- and security policy issues were greatly increased. While it had earlier been allowed to express dissenting opinions on details and nuances of policy, it was now required to closely adhere to the government’s line on neutrality policy. Anyone who differed or asked difficult questions ran the risk of being branded as a heretic and a security risk. Thereby a climate of orthodoxy was established which blocked intelligent debate on (and in the longer run also the understanding of) security policy issues. Another aspect of this was that the Social Democrats acquired a politically useful position as the hegemonic custodians of neutrality policy.[22]

However, there was at least one important aspect of doctrine which did not change as a result of the Hjalmarson affair. Since the onset of the Cold War, it had been Sweden’s policy to keep a low profile on contentious international issues, as side-taking could compromise Sweden’s non-aligned/neutral position. Furthermore, argued Erlander, any Swedish protests against oppression and abuse abroad would be meaningless, as they could not change anything for the better, and would only raise false hopes among the unfortunate.[23] This cautious view reflected Undén’s brand of ‘small-state realism’, according to which the most important consideration was one’s own state’s survival in a brutish and nasty world, and which dismissed notions such as human rights, morality and solidarity. The motives for our policy, said Undén, ‘lie so to say “beyond good and evil”’.[24] The 1962 foreign policy declaration contained no protest or even criticism of the building of the Berlin Wall, started six months earlier, only a dry note of the fact that the Soviet Union ‘obviously seeks to fortify the status quo’ and that it seeks ‘control over contacts between West Berlin and East Germany etc’.[25] Naturally, Undén’s reticence on this point reflected not only his general distaste for statements made on moral grounds, but also the striving not to antagonise the Soviet Union, which was one of the guiding lights of his foreign policy.[26]

A desire not to antagonise the Kremlin would remain part of Swedish security policy even after Undén left the ministry of foreign affairs (Utrikesdepartementet, UD), but the blatant amorality and reticence on contentious international issues beyond Sweden’s vicinity did not. From the mid-1960s came the ‘active foreign policy’ that bore the hallmark of Olof Palme, charged with morality and often with barbs directed against the United States. In a few years, the image of Sweden was transformed from that of a reticent and pro-Western neutral, to that of an outspoken and righteous champion of peoples seeking liberation from colonialism and ‘US imperialism’. This meant not only that Sweden distanced itself politically from the West, but also that neutrality policy was given a moral element it had hitherto lacked. Even if the content and the tenor of Palme’s views on Vietnam were initially controversial on the domestic scene, large segments of the public quickly accepted the basic message on Sweden’s international role. The air of goodness that the new role endowed had a positive effect on self-perception, and neutrality merged with modernity and the welfare state into something of a national meta-ideology. Being Swedish was to be neutral, being neutral was good, thus it was good to be a Swede. That this point of view had a wide acceptance is shown by the fact that the non-socialist governments of 1976-1982 kept up protesting and denouncing various practices abroad, although some changes in nuances can be found.[27]

At about the same time that the active foreign policy was introduced, help from abroad was quietly edged out as an element of doctrine. It was replaced in defence-related documents by the so-called doctrine of marginality, which stipulated that the bulk of a potential aggressor’s forces were tied down by his main opponent, leaving only a minor remainder for use against Sweden.[28] Thus, the West (the USSR being the only potential aggressor) was in Swedish thinking transformed from a dynamic factor which intervened  militarily to help Sweden, to a static factor which tied down Soviet forces. In 1970 Palme resurrected Erlander’s almost forgotten dictum from 1959 about the inadmissibility of preparations and consultations for military cooperation with members of a great power alliance, and it became a standing feature of Swedish defence commission reports until the end of the Cold War.[29] Furthermore. around 1970 a series of reductions of Sweden’s defence spending were initiated, which over time weakened Sweden’s powers of defence, and thus de facto also the element of deterrence in Sweden’s security policy.

The next round of significant changes in doctrine came during the years 1982-1986, and were connected to the battle over security policy waged then. The government made statements which made security policy even more restrictive, and which added further emphasis on the  immutability of neutrality policy, and the on fact that Sweden’s defences were aimed in all directions. A foreign policy which gained the trust of the USSR was said to be more important than the deterrent effect of the armed forces, and the government championed or supported a string of disarmament proposals which ran counter to Western interests and policies. Critics which strayed from orthodoxy and argued for stronger defence efforts were branded by the government as heretics, security risks or renegades.  This included a number of academics, officers and politicians, such as the young parliamentarian Carl Bildt.[30]

The struggle over security policy abated after Palme’s death. For the years that remained  until the fall of the Berlin Wall, a cautious but clear return to a more balanced doctrine is discernible.[31]

 

The Evolution of Preparations for Cooperation with the West 1949-1989

The Swedish military leadership of 1949 clearly understood that even a non-aligned Sweden could become the object of aggression, and that in such a case cooperation with Norway and Denmark would be necessary, as would be assistance from the UK and the US. The government apparently also shared this view. Already in the spring of 1949, Erlander assented to a lobbying campaign by diplomats and senior officers directed at Americans and Britons, with the objective of increasing the prospects of Western help to Sweden in case of war. In September of the same year, the cabinet gave the green light for the armed forces to secretly prepare for wartime ‘military-technical’ cooperation with Norway and Denmark. Under the supervision of the respective chiefs of the defence staff, a number of bilateral plans for the coordination of air surveillance, communications and the use of ciphers, and the protection of shipping, etc, were worked out. A series of decisions by the inner cabinet successively expanded the mandate to encompass also other measures, such as coordination (with Denmark) of the defence of the Sound, a planning contact with Nato’s headquarters for northern Europe, etc. The intelligence cooperation with the UK, the US, Norway and Denmark, which had been going since the end of the war, was expanded and came to include a growing number of Western countries. Liaison teams of officers, to be sent to allied capitals and headquarters if war threatened, were organised in great secrecy, with ‘headquarter’s officer reserve’ used as cover. Maps and other documents for these liaison teams were stored at the embassies in London and Washington, and steps had been taken to receive the liaison teams it was expected that the allies would send to Sweden.[32]

Initially, Britain was Sweden’s most important great-power contact in the West, as the Americans strived to isolate and punish the Swedes for staying out of the Atlantic pact. The British, however, realised that a strong Sweden firmed up the defence of the northern flank, and pragmatically decided to go as far in clandestine cooperation as the Swedish government was willing to accept.[33] The American position softened gradually, and in 1952/1953 a confidential contact-channel was established between the military leadership in Sweden and in America. In 1953/1954 a similar channel was established to Nato.[34] Thus, most of the basic elements of Sweden’s covert cooperation with the West were in place.

From 1954 to the mid-1960s, cooperation grew on the basis thus established. It is not possible in an article such as this to present more than a sample of the measures taken. The plans for wartime cooperation with Norway and Denmark were kept up to date and developed further, and the chiefs of the defence staffs kept rather close contact by way of visits and letters.[35] In 1954, an agreement was reached with Britain on the exchange of naval codes in case of war.[36] By order of the chief of the navy, plans were worked out for cooperation with Nato’s naval forces on Sweden’s west coast, including the one for the basing of allied warships in Sweden.[37]  The mid-1950s saw the beginning of the building of a network of military micro-wave links, which provided secure communications between military authorities in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. By further routing in Nato’s communications net, it was possible to establish communications to the headquarters of US Air Forces Europe (USAFE) in Wiesbaden, or to Britain’s Bomber Command.[38]  

It is hardly a coincidence that many of the most significant measures pertained to air operations, as it would be necessary to coordinate allied and Swedish air operations in case of war. In a war, allied bombers would use Swedish airspace to reach targets in the western USSR, and agreement had been reached on methods of identification, so that Swedish fighters would not mistakenly attack allied aircraft. Through secure means of communications, Sweden could provide the Western allies early warning of westbound Soviet bombers, and also signals-intelligence data on the current status of Soviet air defences. Such information could literally be of vital importance, both for Western air defences, and for the conduct of the air offensive against the Soviet Union.[39] Notably, the Swedish ministry of defence foresaw that this information transfer might take place also in a situation where Sweden was neutral during a war.[40]

Cooperation concerning air operations was also a strong Swedish interest. When the Swedes made wish-lists for the types of help they wanted from the allies in case of war, bomb-strikes against ports, airfields etc on the eastern shore of the Baltic sea, which constituted a threat to Sweden, was among the top items, from the late 1940s to at least the 1970s. The Swedes also hoped that the West would send fighters and fighter-bombers to help out in the struggle against a Soviet attack. The forward-basing of allied nuclear-armed fighter-bombers to bases in Sweden was a staple element in war games from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, and occurred occasionally even during the 1970s.[41]

It has been claimed from time to time that operational cooperation between Swedish and allied air forces would be impossible for technical reasons, such as Swedish bases being too small for allied aircraft, or Sweden and Nato using different types of aviation fuel and different frequency bands for communication between aircraft and the ground.[42] That any such obstacles, if they existed at all, must have been possible to overcome is shown by the so-called SveNorDa emergency landing exercises, which took place regularly from the early 1960s on. During these exercises, Danish and Norwegian aircraft landed at Swedish bases, received service, and took off again. If this worked in peacetime, it ought to have worked in wartime as well. But differing frequency bands was indeed a problem during the years when Nato used the UHF-band and Sweden stuck to VHF. In my book, it is revealed for the first time that special UHF transceivers were added to the Swedish military aircraft control network in the mid-1960s, with the explicit purpose of facilitating communications with allied aircraft in Swedish airspace.[43]

It seems that, by the early 1960s, the preparations for cooperation with the West was becoming more sensitive an issue within the military high command. The sensitivity of the matter was forwarded as a reason when the management of preparations were centralised to a small group within the operations directorate of the defence staff.[44] Some measures – e.g. naval planning for the west coast and the planned exchange of naval codes – were allowed to lapse, but others were added. In the early 1960s, the liaison teams were expanded and their tasks were clarified. One of the service chiefs (normally the navy chief)  was tasked to be senior liaison officer to the Western powers, and also ÖB in exile, if the need arose. Preparations were made for the evacuation of the cabinet and the royal family, and premises for a government in exile were arranged at a secret location in Britain.[45] From 1964 there are also signs of a new confidential contact-channel between the Swedish and the American military leadership, through the deputy commander of US forces in Europe (DCINCEUR). The post of DCINCEUR was since 1962 given to air force officers with a background in operations and plans, usually from the Strategic Air Command (SAC).[46] The last known significant concrete measures (UHF-transceivers, an encrypted telex-line from the Swedish defence staff to USAFE HQ in Wiesbaden) were undertaken in 1964-1966.[47]

From the mid-1960s, it is also possible to discern a change in the manner in which these matters were handled by military and political leaders. Until this time, the preparations for cooperation with the West – although highly secret and kept within a narrow circle – had mostly been handled according to normal staff procedures: desk-officers responsible for the matter drew up plans and wrote memoranda, which were briefed to their superiors, sometimes also to the cabinet or its inner circle. When a change of posts occurred, the incoming officer was given a proper hand-over. But from the second half of the 1960s, the management of the preparations became increasingly irregular; Stig Synnergren (chief of the defence staff 1967-1970, and ÖB 1970-1978) often short-circuited the system and ran the desk-officers directly, less and less was put on paper, and taskings and hand-overs became so laconic as to be pointless. The responsibility for preparing for cooperation with Western military forces was increasingly seen as a personal mandate to a specific individual, rather than adhering to a particular position in the staff. When key officers were promoted, they often took the task of cooperation with the West ‘along’ to their new post, keeping their replacements uninformed. In this manner, the handling of preparations was pushed up the hierarchy, while the circle of those in the know shrank.[48] There are no signs of briefings to the whole cabinet on these matters after 1963, although Erlander and defence minister Sven Andersson were kept informed.[49]

This trend continued for most of the 1970s. The 1974-1979 guidelines for war planning still explicitly said that areas important for the reception of help from abroad should be defended to the utmost.[50] Within the operations directorate of the defence staff, a handful of officers worked on preparations for cooperation with the West, for example updating the plans for cooperation with Norway and Denmark, and for the liaison teams. According to one officer who left this post in 1978, there was ‘go in the planning’ during the 1970s, most of the plans had been overhauled or revamped, and there was not much old stuff left.[51] But outside that circle, ignorance grew about the role of the Western factor in Sweden’s strategy. During the 1950s and 1960s, cooperation with, and help from, the Western powers had been a prominent feature in Swedish war games. This factor disappeared almost entirely during the 1970s, and the games were conducted as if there was a separate war going on between Sweden and the Soviet Union, unrelated to the world war raging around us. It became more and more common for participants in games to assume that Sweden would continue to uphold its neutrality against Nato, while fighting a defensive war against the USSR. This stance may seem bizarre now, but it was a reality then.[52]

The cabinet’s knowledge about the preparations declined drastically during these years. Initially, Palme took over Erlander’s role on these matters when he assumed the position as party leader and prime minister in late 1969, and Defence Minister Sven Andersson remained the cabinet’s point-man on these matters. But within a few years, many of Erlander’s old guard – who knew about and understood these matters – retired from the cabinet, and the incoming ministers were seldom let in on the secret. A clear break in the institutional memory took place during the change of government in 1976, when a non-socialist coalition took over from the Social Democrats, which effectively had ruled since 1932. Palme then chose not to inform his successor as prime minister, Torbjörn Fälldin, about the steps secretly taken to safeguard the nation’s survival by way of a life-line to the West. Not even ÖB Synnergren told Fälldin anything of significance on this matter. He later brazenly said that he waited to see if the new government would issue any new directives on the matter, and when this did not happen, he kept on as before. The only member of the cabinet to be informed was defence minister Eric Krönmark, and he was only told bits and pieces by his predecessor and by Synnergren. He dared not to bring up the matter with his cabinet colleagues, many of which ‘believed in the dogmas of neutrality’, he later said.[53] The fact that the national political leadership during these years were uninformed about the hidden aspects of Sweden’s security policy, and the important measures taken for cooperation with the West, raises a number of serious issues.

It is possible that Lennart Ljung, after having taken over as supreme commander in 1978, kept the government better informed than Synnergren did, but this we do still not know. It does however seem that Ljung reintroduced a greater element of formality in the management of these matters. But it was also during Ljung’s tenure as ÖB that most of the remnants of the preparations for wartime cooperation with the Western powers were closed down. Officers tasked with the upkeep of planning for cooperation with the West from 1978 on later said that they felt great unease over the material, as it clashed so sharply with declaratory security policy. One of them said that he avoided the matter, and that he contacted Ljung with a request to destroy the plans. Ljung asked Synnergren (by then retired) and defence minister Thunborg for advice; according to his own account, Thunborg answered equivocally. Ljung then gave a green (or at least amber) light to destroy the plans, and they were destroyed before the end of 1984. Two former chiefs of the defence staff also say that Ljung actively sought to close down the preparations and looked for more documents to destroy. ‘It is time to close down the shop’, he reportedly said.[54] When Per Rudberg was about to leave the position of chief of the navy in 1984, he assumed that he would also turn over the task as ‘ÖB in exile’ to his successor, but Ljung told him not to mention the matter to his successor. Instead, Rudberg was to keep the task for a few more years, a request he agreed to.[55] When Ljung himself left the post of ÖB in 1986, he said nothing to his successor Bengt Gustafsson about the recently terminated preparations. At the political level, the institutional memory was broken at this time too. After Thunborg left the cabinet in 1985, and Palme was assassinated in 1986, there were no longer any members of the cabinet who knew about the secret links to the West. Neither did any of the then still living veterans from Erlander’s cabinet, who were in the know, step forward to tell the new prime minister about the matter.[56]

Finally, there is another aspect of planning that deserves mention. Although the secret passage from Sweden’s fortress of neutrality to the West was effectively lost and forgotten by 1986, it would not be until the summer of 1989 – when the Cold War was almost over – that a defence plan for a situation where Sweden was neutral in major war was worked out and authorised. This rather remarkable fact was mentioned in passing in a few places in Ekéus’ report.[57] What is remarkable is not that Sweden had a defence plan for a neutrality-situation from 1 July 1989, but the fact it did not have such a plan before that date. That Sweden aimed to be neutral in an East-West war was – to put it mildly – a prominent aspect of official security policy, and increasingly so as the decades passed. Nonetheless, neither the military leadership nor the government  – which as a rule was provided with a copy of war plans  – apparently found this case sufficiently relevant to warrant planning for it until the Cold War was almost over. This raises questions concerning the nature of Sweden’s security policy, about the workings of its national security apparatus, or both.

 

The Explanation: Rhetoric Became Reality

It remains to compare the evolution of declaratory doctrine with the evolution of the covert preparations for wartime military cooperation with the West. Doctrine was principally unchanged from 1949/1950 until 1959, when the government categorically ruled out preparations for military cooperation with members of a great power alliance, elevated the maintenance of the credibility of neutrality policy  to paramount status, and established a hegemonic orthodoxy over debate on security policy. These changes in doctrine seem to have had no immediate effect on preparations, most probably because the cabinet had secretly authorised the military leadership to carry on as before.[58] ÖB Nils Swedlund was no stranger to the idea that the government might secretly condone what it publicly condemned, he had seen it before. Still, it is possible to discern an increase in caution and in secrecy surrounding the preparations during the first years of the 1960s, and this was at least partly done with explicit reference to the fact that the preparations countermanded the government’s official line.[59]

During the first half of the 1960s, ‘help from abroad’ was edged out from declaratory doctrine by the ‘doctrine of marginality’. During the second half of the 1960s came the ‘active foreign policy’, which transformed the public image of Sweden’s neutrality policy and international position. Policy was given a moral-ideological dimension it had hitherto lacked, and neutrality came to be seen as a merit good, and as a part of national identity. The political distance to the Western powers increased, particularly concerning issues such as war and peace. These years also saw  significant changes in the pattern of preparations. The mid-1960s is something of a watershed, in the sense that there are no indications from the following years of significant new preparatory measures having been taken. The matter was also considered as more sensitive than previously, it became more difficult to talk about it, and the circle of those involved or in the know shrunk. Concomitantly, the management of preparations and confidential contacts became increasingly irregular and personalised. This trend continued during the 1970s, when the political climate became even harsher. Within the armed forces, only a handful of officers were involved, and the Western factor disappeared from war games and strategic discussions. Accounts by officers who once dealt with these matters indicate that in the 1950s it was possible to write about help from the West, in the 1960s it was possible to talk about it, but during the 1970s it became forbidden to even think about it. On the political side, Palme evidently thought the matter so sensitive that he decided not to inform his successor as prime minister about the steps taken to safe-guard the nation’s survival in an emergency.

The last major change of doctrine during the Cold War came in the years 1982-1986, when doctrine was made even more restrictive, even more emphasis was added to gaining the trust of the Kremlin, and statements sharply denouncing nuclear deterrence and the West’s security policies were issued. Those who publicly questioned the government’s conduct of policy were often harshly criticised. During the same years, Ljung had the remaining plans for military cooperation with the West destroyed, and saw to it that incoming top-level officers were not told about what had been. The preparations were thus effectively terminated, and the institutional memory was lost, both on the military side and on the political. After 1986, it was still possible in Moscow, Washington and a few other capitals to find people in positions of power who knew about Sweden’s secret military ties to the West. But not in Stockholm.

Thus, there is correspondence between changes in doctrine, on the one hand, and the downgrading and end of preparations on the other. As doctrine became stricter, more strident, and more visible, the maintenance of preparations suffered, the matter became more sensitive, and the circle of those in the know shrank. It is striking that the last vestiges of preparations were effectively terminated at the same time that an acrimonious debate on security policy raged, during which the government made far-reaching statements which were at odds with the logic of underlying preparations. A number of factors strongly suggest that this is not only a temporal coincidence, but that there is also a causal link. An important part of this link, I argue, are two factors or mechanisms which reinforced the restrictive effect that a increasingly dogmatic and strident doctrine had on the room for preparations.

The first of these is connected to the fact that doctrine, from the mid-1960s on, helped transform the public face of Swedish neutrality policy from expediency to ideology, and cemented a wide-spread image of neutrality as morally superior and part of Swedishness. As this mind-set gained ground among civilian and military decision-makers, it raised barriers to the maintenance of preparations, to open mention of the Western factor’s role in Swedish security policy, and to taking new individuals into confidence about the real state of affairs. Examples of this are provided by the staff officers, who in the late 1970s were taken aback by the secret plans for cooperation with the West they had been tasked to maintain. One of them later said that he was terrified by what he found, as he had gone into the job thinking that we were going to be neutral. The documents clashed with his world-view, and he avoided dealing with them.[60]

The second factor is that an increasingly strict, strident and visible doctrine increased the gap between declaratory policy and the maintenance of preparations. This gap would have translated into political height-of-fall for the government in case something came out, the more so if the government’s statements had been made in polemics with domestic opponents. A more strident doctrine thus increased the political risk of continuing with the preparations and of letting people in on the secret. During the 1950s it might have been possible to handle an exposure without major consequences, this at least was how Erlander and the diplomats at UD apparently saw it.[61] However, the government’s categorical, restrictive, and harsh words during the debate over the Hjalmarson affair most probably raised the political cost of any major revelation in the years that followed. The morally charged active foreign policy, and Palme’s sharp criticism of America’s warfare in Vietnam, must have raised the potential for damage even further. One might imagine the consequences, had it become publicly known during the early 1970s that the Swedish government secretly counted on the US Air Force to save it from a Soviet invasion, by bombing the Baltic republics and Finland. As Professor Wilhelm Agrell later put it, ‘Whoever knew enough and could prove it, could in one blow depose the government and perhaps break apart the Social Democratic party’.[62] The risks rose even further during the early 1980s, when the government’s line became ultra-orthodox, and the cabinet issued a unique statement of censure against Carl Bildt for having talked to US intelligence officials. In the infected climate of that time, full of mistrust, an exposure of the government’s covert cooperation with the West could have had explosive consequences.[63]

Archival sources and interviews with former officials show that political and military leaders did indeed worry about leaks, and that this was a factor which let to shrinking of the circle of those in the know during the 1970s and 1980s. The cabinet-briefings on cooperation with the West which took place in 1959 and 1963 were both prompted by concern for the risk of an exposure (by Hjalmarson, and by Colonel Stig Wennerström, remanded as a Soviet spy, respectively).[64] In 1978, the risk of leaks was given as reason for withdrawing a game-move concerning cooperation with the West from a command-post exercise at HQ-level.[65] Synnergren later said that he withheld information from the cabinet in order to protect it; if there was an exposure of the preparations, he would take the blame. Krönmark thought in a similar manner when he did not inform his cabinet-colleagues. And Ljung forwarded the same motive when asked why he handled these matters himself.[66]  The most reasonable explanation for Ljung finally closing down the preparations is that he, in the tense atmosphere of the early 1980s, saw the risk of an exposure as too great and the consequences as too grave, and shut down what remained.[67]

Some elements of the preparations remained even after 1986, but as neither the political nor the military leadership were aware of them, they had lost their practical and political significance. What was meant to be the nation’s life-line for an emergency had been lost.

 

Robert Dalsjö is a security-policy analyst at the Swedish Defense Research Agencey (FOI).

 

 

Notes:

[1] The pioneering works were principally Paul Cole, Neutralité du Jour: The conduct of Swedish security policy since 1945 (Ann Arbor: UMI, 1990); Wilhelm Agrell, Den stora lögnen: Ett säkerhetspolitiskt dubbelspel i alltför många akter (Stockholm: Ordfront, 1991); and broadcast programmes by Christer Larsson in Swedish Radio’s Programme 1 (SR/P1). The CNP’s report was published in both Swedish and English, although the English version did not include the references. Om kriget kommit: Förberedelser för mottagande av militärt bistånd 1949-1969 SOU 1994:11 (Stockholm: Fritzes, 1994); Had there been a war…Preparations for the reception of military assistance 1949-1969. Report of the Commission on Neutrality Policy. SOU 1994:11) (Stockholm: Fritzes, 1994). References here, unless otherwise indicated, are to the English version.

[2] Among the published findings which followed the CNP’s report, some of the most significant are: Mikael Holmström, ’Den dolda alliansen’, Svenska Dagbladet [SvD], 2, 3, 7 Aug., 23, 30 Sept., and 4 Oct. 1998; Mikael Holmström, ‘Sverige i Nato:s ögon’, SvD, 5, 7, 10 and 24 Oct. 1999; Charles Silva, Keep them strong, keep them friendly: Swedish-American relations and the Pax Americana, 1948-1952 (Stockholm: n.p., 1999); Fred och säkerhet: Svensk säkerhetspolitik 1969-1989 Slutbetänkande av säkerhetspolitiska utredningen, SOU 2002:108 (Stockholm: Fritzes, 2002); Juhana Auneslouma, Britain, Sweden and the Cold War, 1945-1954: Understanding neutrality (Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); Johan Gribbe, En inre angelägenhet för fritt tankeutbyte: Synen på västsamverkan i Försvarshögskolans krigsspel 1952-1979, TRITA-HST Working paper 2003/1 (Stockholm: KTK, 2003); Mikael Nilsson, ”Gud vare tack och lov så talade de inte om allt de gjorde”: En källkritisk granskning av Neutralitetspolitikkommissionens betänkande SOU 1994:11, TRITA-HST Working paper 2003/2 (Stockholm: KTH, 2003); Magnus Petersson, ”Brödrafolkens väl”: Svensk-norska säkerhetsrelationer 1949-1969 (Stockholm: Santérus, 2003); Simon Moores, ”Neutral on our side”: US-Swedish military and security relations during the Eisenhower administration (unpublishwed Ph:D.thesis, LSE, 2004). A good overview of the state of the research can be found in Olof Kronvall and Magnus Petersson, Svensk säkerhetspolitik i supermakternas skugga 1945-1991 (Stockholm: Santérus, 2005).

[3] Holmström, ’Den dolda’; 1998; Holmström, ‘Sverige i Nato:s’; Peter Bratt, ’Neutraliteten ett falskspel för folket’, Dagens Nyheter [henceforth DN], 9 Jan. 1999; Ann-Sofie Dahl, Svenskarna och Nato (Stockholm: Timbro, 1999); Wilhelm Agrell, Fred och fruktan, Sveriges säkerhetspolitiska historia 1918-2000, (Lund: Historiska Media, 2000).

[4] Utrikesfrågor 1959: Offentliga dokument mm rörande viktigare svenska utrikesfrågor. Aktstycken utgivna av Utrikesdepartementet. Ny serie I:C (Stockholm: Kungl. Utrikesdepartementet, 1960), p. 45. Sverker Åström, ’”Erlander kan inte anklagas för medveten lögn”’, SvD, 23 Feb. 1994; Ulf Bjereld, Hjalmarsonaffären: Ett politiskt drama i tre akter (Stockholm: Nerenius & Santérus, 1997), pp. 162-164; Ulf Bjereld, ’Sverige och neutraliteten’, Internationella Studier [henceforth IS] 2004:1 (contains quotes from Ekéus); Rolf Ekéus, ’Mytbildning om neutralitetspolitiken’, IS 2005:1.

[5] SOU 1994:11, p. 37.

[6] SOU 2002:108. An abridged translation into English of this report is available, Peace and Security: Swedish Security Policy 1969-1989 (Stockholm: Fritzes, 2004). References here are to the full Swedish version. The quote of his remit is from p. 49.

[7] His report on the government’s handling of the submarine intrusions in Swedish waters, as well as some of the criticism against it, is reflected on the PHP-website: http://www.php.isn.ethz.ch/publications/areastudies/subinc.cfm. For examples of criticism against his report on security policy, see e.g. Kjell Engelbrekt, ‘”…En bättre återförsäkring än vi anade”?’, IS 2003:1; Johan Tunberger ‘Var den aktiva utrikespolitiken ett bländverk?’, Vårt Försvar 2003:1; Krister Wahlbäck, ’Ekéus resonemang håller inte’, IS 2004:4; Krister Wahlbäck, ’Ekéus läser slarvigt’, IS 2005:2. 

[8] Plenty of examples of this are provided in my book, see note 13 below.

[9] SOU 2002:108, chaps 7 and 8.

[10] Conversation with Evert Båge, 8 Mar. 1993, Vol. 9, the CNP Archive (CNPA), Regeringskansliets Centralarkiv, Stockholm; Interview with Anders Thunborg, 26 May 1993, Vol. 11, CNPA; Holmström, ‘Den dolda’, SvD, 2 Aug. 1998.

[11] SOU 1994:11, p. 264.

[12] CNP-interview with Thunborg.

[13] Robert Dalsjö, Life-Line Lost.: The rise and fall of ’neutral’ Sweden’s secret option of wartime help from the West. (Stockholm: Santérus Academic Press, 2006). The book is based on my Ph.D-thesis from the Department of War Studies, King’s College, London. It is available from the publisher (www.santerus.se) and from major international and Swedish internet booksellers, such as www.amazon.com, www.amazon.co.uk, www.barnesnoble.com, www.adlibris.se, www.bokus.se, and www.internetbokhandeln.se.

[14] CNP-interview with Thunborg.

[15] SOU 2002:108, pp. 251-252; Notes from a meeting with Ekéus at FHS, 25 Jan. 2003, author’s collection (henceforth AC).

[16] Interview with Caspar Weinberger, 16 Sept. 1999, AC; Interview with Elmo Zumwalt, 17 Sept. 1999, AC; Interview with Helmut Sonnenfelt, 17 Sept. 1999, AC; Interview with Richard Bowman, 3 Apr. 2001, AC; SOU 2002:108, pp. 223-224, 246-328.

[17] RD AK 1949, Nr 25, 26 okt., pp. 55-56; RD AK 1949, Nr 25, 27 okt., pp. 114-115. (Swedish Parliamentary print).

[18] SOU 1994:11, s. 52, 307; Dalsjö, Life-Line, pp. 71-73. A deeper analysis of the loophole and possible motives for it is provided in Robert Dalsjö, ”Förhoppningar och förbud: En uppdatering av bilden av statsmakternas offentliga linje avseende militär hjälp utifrån under det kalla kriget” Kungl. Krigsvetenskapsakademiens handlingar och tidskrift, 2002:4, pp. 104-106.

[19] Dalsjö, Life-Line, pp, 66-68, 73.

[20] In the summer of 1959, Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev cancelled a planned visit to Scandinavia, citing the lack of governmental reaction to a bourgeois ‘campaign’ against the visit as the cause. Undén promptly had the leader of the Conservatives, Jarl Hjalmarson, who had participated in the ‘campaign’, removed from Sweden’s parliamentary delegation to the UN’s general assembly (which normally included representatives from the opposition). The matter became public and the Social Democrats chose to pick a fight with Hjalmarson, who had earlier suggested that Sweden (although formally non-aligned) was part of the Western family of democracies and a had a common cause with the West, that Sweden needed help from the West if attacked, and that certain minor and non-binding preparations should be made for the reception of help.  In a number of major speeches and  a pamphlet, the Government branded Hjalmarson as a deviant on neutrality policy, outside the mainstream and unfit for government. In the course of doing so, the government also changed doctrine, making it more restrictive and ruling out measures the government had already authorised in secret. Hjalmarson defended himself eloquently, but in the end Erlander and Undén were victorious. The Conservatives, which had gained seats in four elections in a row, lost the next election, and Hjalmarson resigned. Utrikesfrågor 1959, pp. 44-63; Tage Erlander, Sveriges utrikespolitik (n.p: SAP/Tiden, 1959); Bjereld, Hjalmarsonaffären; Nikita Khrushchev, Krushchev remembers: The last testament, ed. Strobe Talbott (Boston: Little, Brown &Co, 1974, pp. 368-370.

[21] Nils Andrén, for decades the grand old man of scholarly study of modern Swedish security policy, has labelled these two stances as ’conditional neutrality and ’unconditional neutrality’, respectively. Nils Andrén, Säkerhetspolitik: Analyser och tillämpningar (Stockholm: Norstedts juridik, 1997), pp. 77-80.

[22] Dalsjö, Life-Line, pp. 75-81; Dalsjö, ”Förhoppningar”, pp. 106-110.

[23] Erlander, Sveriges, pp. 20-21.

[24] Utrikesfrågor 1962, p. 33.

[25] Utrikesfrågor 1962, p. 19.

[26] Olof Kronvall, Östen Undéns sovjetsyn och sovjetpolitik 1945-62 (n.p.: SUKK, 2003).

[27] For example, the non-socialist governments also protested against the treatment of dissidents in the Soviet realm. Dalsjö, Life-Line Lost, pp. 93-96, 102-103, 119-123.

[28] ÖB 62: Riktlinjer för krigsmaktens fortsatta utveckling (Stockholm: Försvarsstaben, 1962), pp. 14, 53-54; Wilhelm Agrell, Alliansfrihet och atombomber: Kontinuitet och förändring i den svenska försvarsdoktrinen 1945-1982 (Stockholm: Liber, 1985), pp. 174-178; Bo Hugemark ’Försvar för neutralitet: Några perspektiv på utvecklingen sedan 1945’, in Bo Hugemark (ed.) Neutralitet och försvar (Stockholm: Militärhistoriska förlaget, 1986), pp. 231-232.

[29] Utrikesfrågor 1970, pp. 14-15; Dalsjö, ’Förhoppningar’, p. 111.

[30] Dalsjö, Life-Line, pp. 128-138.

[31] Dalsjö, Life-Line, pp. 138-140.

[32] SOU 1994: 11, pp. 203-212; Dalsjö, Life-Line, pp. 147-161.

[33] Silva; Auneslouma, chaps. 4-6.

[34] Moores; Agrell, Den stora, pp. 83-87, 107-109.

[35] Dalsjö, Life-Line Lost, pp. 162-163.

[36] 22/3 1954, Handlingar rörande samarbete i Norden, Vol. 1, Ser. F II, Fst Chefsexp., Fst KH-arkiv, Högkvarterets arkiv (HKVA).

[37] SOU 1994:11, pp. 225-229.

[38] SOU 1994:11, pp. 190-191, 210-213; Dalsjö, Life-Line Lost, p. 164.

[39] Dalsjö, Life-Line, pp. 164-167.

[40] Utkast till föredragning inför 1955 års försvarsberedning: Sveriges läge och strategiska betydelse vid ett krig mellan Öst och Väst, 16 feb. 1956, 1955 års försvarsberednings arkiv, Riksarkivet (RA), pp. 31-32.

[41] Dalsjö, Life-Line, pp. 156, 175-179, 199-201; Gribbe, pp. 25-31, 35, 47; SOU 1994:11, pp. 84-87, 292-293.

[42] See e.g. SOU 2002:108, pp. 732-733.

[43] Dalsjö, Life-Line, pp. 163-164.

[44] Åke Mangård, VPM ang hjälp utifrån, 29/11 1961, Handlingar rörande samarbete i Norden, Vol. 1, Ser. F II, Fst Chefsexp., Fst KH-arkiv, HKVA; Mangård, C OpL II, Förberedelser för bistånd utifrån, 4 Dec. 1962, Chefsexp F1:1, Fst KH, HKVA. LINK

[45] Dalsjö, Life-Line, pp. 156,  170-171, 180, 187-188. Sweden is perhaps unique among democratic states to have a uniformed officer as supreme commander, also in peacetime.

[46] Dalsjö, Life-Line, pp. 169-170.

[47] Dalsjö, Life-Line, p. 172.

[48] Dalsjö, Life-Line, pp. 214-220.

[49] Dalsjö, Life-Line, p. 221.

[50] Dalsjö, Life-Line, pp. 210-211.

[51] Dalsjö, Life-Line, pp. 199-201.

[52] Dalsjö, Life-Line, pp. 175-180, 211-213.

[53] Interviews and conversations with Torbjörn Fälldin, Gösta Gunnarsson, Erik Krönmark, Gunnar Nordbeck and Stig Synnergren, AC.

[54] Interviews with Bengt Schuback and Bror Stefenson, AC.

[55] Interview and conversations with Per Rudberg, AC.

[56] Interviews with Ingvar Carlsson and Kjell-Olof Feldt, AC.

[57] SOU 2002: 108, pp. 201, 523, 528.

[58] Henning, Regeringsföredragning 21/11 1959, Handlingar rörande samarbete i Norden, Vol. 1, Ser. F II, Fst Chefsexp., Fst KH-arkiv, HKVA; 18/12 59, Handlingar rörande samarbete i Norden, Vol. 1, Ser. F II, Fst Chefsexp., Fst KH-arkiv, HKVA.

[59] Dalsjö, Life-Line, p. 187.

[60] Dalsjö, Life-Line, p. 234.

[61] Swedlund to Boheman, 11 Nov 1949, Handlingar rörande samarbete i Norden, Vol. 1, Ser. F II, Fst Chefsexp., Fst KH-arkiv, HKVA.

[62] Agrell, Fred, p. 180.

[63] Dalsjö, Life-Line, pp. 274-276.

[64] Dalsjö, Life-Line, pp. 183, 278.

[65] Agrell, Fred, p. 320.

[66] Interviews with Synnergren, Krönmark, and Schuback, AC.

[67] Interviews and conversations with Schuback, Gunnar Eklund, and Rudberg, AC.