| Associated Press Sun 31-AUG-1986 15:57 Obit-Kekkonen
Former Finish President Dead At 85
By RISTO MAENPAA
Associated Press Writer
HELSINKI, Finland (AP) - Urho Kekkonen, Finland's longest-serving
president and the chief architect of his country's delicate
relationship with the Soviet Union until he retired in 1981, died
Sunday. He was 85.
Kekkonen died of a circulatory disorder in the brain, his son, Matti,
said in a statement carried by the official Finnish news agency STT. He
said his father had been in intensive care at his home, the
presidential residence in Helsinki, for the past week.
Five years ago, Kekkonen was forced into retirement in the middle of
his fifth term because of mental disorientation brought on by hardening
of the arteries. He had remained secluded since then.
The government said it would announce funeral arrangements Monday.
Flags flew at half-staff throughout the country Sunday.
Kekkonen first became president in 1956 and helped shape a Finnish
relationship with the neighboring Soviet Union that emphasized
avoidance of conflict with Moscow. The approach was the basis for the
political catchword "Finlandization," first used by critics in the
1960s to describe what they considered excessive Western European
efforts to accommodate the Soviet Union.
"When he left the helm of foreign policy, Finland was in a better
position than she had ever been in the history of our people,"
Kekkonen's successor, Mauno Koivisto, said in a televised eulogy
Sunday. He said Kekkonen's "achievements were major and point the way
for us far into the future."
Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev sent a telegram, praising Kekkonen
as "one of the most prominent international politicians of the postwar
time" who displayed "wisdom and realism in the approach to the crucial
issues of war and peace," the official Soviet news agency Tass said.
Gorbachev said Kekkonen helped confirm "the policy of peaceful
co-existence of states with different social systems," Tass reported.
Sweden's prime minister, Ingvar Carlsson, credited Kekkonen with
winning international respect for Finland and contributing to stability
and calm in northern Europe. He cited Kekkonen's role in organizing the
1975 East-West conference in Helsinki which led to accords on human
rights and other subjects.
"With the departure of Urho Kekkonen, Finland has lost one of its
greatest sons and the Nordic countries one of the most progressive
statesmen of the postwar period," Danish Prime Minister Poul Schlueter
said.
Norway's Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland said Kekkonen "will stand
in history as one of the great statesmen of the Nordic countries. His
contribution for Finland, for Nordic contacts and for cooperation
between East and West can hardly be overestimated."
Kekkonen was born Sept. 3, 1900, in Pielavesi, eastern Finland, the
oldest child of a forestry foreman. He received a doctorate in law in
1936 and entered politics the same year, winning a seat in the
Eduskunta, or Parliament, as a member of the Agrarian Party.
Kekkonen became a director of the Bank of Finland in 1946 and held the
job for 10 years until he was elected president. He also was speaker of
Parliament from 1948 to 1950 and foreign minister from 1952 to 1953 and
again in 1954.
Kekkonen won the presidency in 1956 by the smallest margin possible in
Finland's electoral college, receiving 151 votes to 149 for Social
Democrat K.A. Fagerholm. He was re-elected to six-year terms in 1962
and 1968. Special legislation extended his second term until 1978. A
year before it ended he agreed to become the candidate of six major
parties, and overwhelmingly won another term.
In August 1975, Kekkonen was the host to President Gerald R. Ford,
Soviet party leader Leonid I. Brezhnev and other heads of state at the
Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, which produced "the
Helsinki Accords."
While Kekkonen worked to avoid problems with the Soviet Union, he also
made Finland part of the European Free Trade Association in 1961 and
concluded a trade agreement with the European Economic Community in
1973.
Kekkonen's successor in January 1982, Social Democart Mauno Koivisto,
vowed he would follow the "Paasikivi-Kekkonen Line" of his
predecessors.
In 1926, Kekkonen married Sylvi Uino, who later wrote "Amalia," a book
translated into 10 languages that recounted a woman's plight in rural
Finland. They had twin sons, Matti and Taneli. Mrs. Kekkonen died in
1974.
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| Associated Press Mon 01-SEP-1986 15:54 Finland-Kekkonen
Kekkonen State Funeral Set for Sunday
HELSINKI, Finland (AP) - A state funeral for former president Urho
Kekkonen will be conducted Sunday, the Finnish government announced
Monday.
Kekkonen, the chief engineer of Finland's close relationship after
World War II with the neighboring Soviet Union, died Sunday of a
circulatory disorder in the brain. He was 85. He retired in 1981 after
26 years as president.
The funeral is to be held in Helsinki Cathedral, an 18th century
landmark church that dominates the Finnish capital's harbor.
Telegrams of condolence continued to arrive in Helsinki Monday from
world leaders, as government officials, representatives of the
state-supported Lutheran church and the military filed in a solemn
procession to sign a memorial book in a central Helsinki assembly hall.
Nordic countries and the Soviet Union were expected to send
high-ranking representatives to the funeral.
"In decisive questions of war and peace, Kekkonen showed political
foresight and realism," Soviet party leader Mikhail Gorbachev said in
his telegram.
"His strong personality and the exceptional courage he showed in
nurmeous situations, has increased the respect Finland enjoys in the
world," French President Francois Mitterrand said in his message.
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| Associated Press Sun 07-SEP-1986 16:01 Kekkonen
Kekkonen Buried as Finns, Foreign Dignitaries Mourn
By FRANK POWLEY
Associated Press Writer
HELSINKI, Finland (AP) - Former President Urho Kekkonen was buried
Sunday as delegations from 40 nations paid their respects. President
Mauno Koivisto eulogized him as a man of courage who molded Finland's
post-war policy of neutrality.
Police estimated that 100,000 people lined the two-mile route from
Helsinki's Lutheran Cathedral to the Hietaniemi national cemetery,
where five other presidents are buried. Kekkonen died Aug. 31 at age 85
after a long illness that had forced him to resign in 1981. He had been
president since 1956.
"Urho Kekkonen was more than a man of his own era. He also molded his
era," Koivisto said during the funeral at the cathedral, broadcast live
throughout Scandinavia. "Were the history of Finland in that quarter
century to be written without mentioning his share in it, it would be a
mere shadow of reality," he said.
Koivisto said Kekkonen's foreign policy was built on the belief "that
the most important thing was to build good and trusting relations with
neighboring countries, above all with the Soviet Union." "Cooperation
requires trust in order to succeed and it grows most surely from
cooperation itself. This always calls for courage and open-mindedness,
and also taking personal risks, something from which Urho Kekkonen
never flinched," he said.
After World War II, Kekkonen headed a Finnish delegation to Moscow to
negotiate the bilateral Treaty of Cooperation and Mutual Assistance,
the cornerstone of Finnish neutrality and foreign policy signed in
1948. He presided over the 1975 Conference on Security and Cooperation
in Europe, held in Helsinki.
At the funeral were dignitaries from the 35 nations that signed the
Helsinki accords, including the United States and Soviet Union. The
American delegation was led by former National Security Advisor Robert
McFarlane. Sweden's King Carl Gustaf XVI and Prime Minister Ingvar
Carlsson, King Olav V and Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland of
Norway, Crown Prince Frederik and Prime Minister Poul Schlueter of
Denmark and Iceland's President Vigdis Finnbogadottir were present.
Helsinki Archbishop John Vikstroem compared Kekkonen to a "lone skier"
who others can only stop to watch as he "slowly disappears beyond the
frontier." "That is what we have now done ... as an entire people. The
track is now empty," the archbishop said. "We have stopped to watch.
But we cannot stay put, because we have not yet reached our
destination. Our journey goes on."
Flags flew at half-staff nationwide, and bells tolled at Helsinki's
churches during the 75-minute procession to the cemetery. Eight
generals walked alongside the hearse carrying Kekkonen's coffin. The
cortege paused briefly in front of the presidential palace.
The pall bearers, including Kekkonen's 58-year old son, Matti, and
29-year old grandson, Timo, lowered the oak coffin into the grave as an
army band played the presidential salute.
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