Oldal 474 [474]
OCR
472 Anssi Halmesvirta minister from the Conservative Coalition Party, Niilo Kosola, was persona non grata to the Soviets for he was the son of the late fascist and Russian hater Viljo Kosola (Jussila, Hentilä & Nevakivi 1999: 255-256). In order to “melt the frost”, President Kekkonen and his wife made an unofficial tourist trip to Leningrad in January 1959, supposedly, accidentally when Khrushchev and Gromyko also happened to be there. During a postnegotiation lunch, Khrushchev named the social-democrats in the government “bad boys”, adding that though Finland had a right to nominate governments, the Soviet Union had the right to think what it pleased about Finnish governments. After returning to Finland, Kekkonen took all the credit for diffusing the crisis by dismissing the government and saying in his TV-radio speech that the crisis had been “deeper” than the Finns realized (Ibid.: 276-277, 285, 289). He also referred to some caricatures by Kari concerning which he asked the Soviets’ understanding. One of these is shown in Figure 5. Figure 5 Kari’s caricature Second Days of Cultural Negotiations?, reflects the solution of the crisis. When analysing the caricature we find peculiar features: Kari insinuates that Khrushchev and Kekkonen had secretly agreed to meet in Leningrad and that Kekkonen had again played a trick of camouflage (i.e. the real purpose of the meeting was concealed to the Finnish public). To prove this Kari should have had some evidence to back up his insinuations but as a cartoonist he did not need it. Its message could well have been true. The wink of the eye of Khrushchev indicates that the men had a common understanding about what was going on: this was usually the image of the Soviets in connection with Finnish politics—a double-dealing, friendly face. In this case the crisis suited both leaders: Kekkonen could make political points at home and Khrushchey, in the international arena. Both were happy. What Kari did not have to say was this: there is a plot behind the meeting titled “Second Days of Culture”, Kekkonen seeing the “best sights” in Leningrad. Kari made of this meeting a well-staged play; there is the opera, the empty chair, and some acting from both players in the political game. Kekkonen is saying, “What a surprise!”. These elements hint at the import of the meeting that a thousand words couldn’ express. The image is ambiguous but tells more than any document could. There is Kari’s insinuation of Kekkonen’s arrogant lust for power (alleged without mention of real reasons)—which contradicts the Western ideals of Finnish democracy—using almost dictatorial gestures (Ylénen 2001: 297). The Soviet Union reinstated diplomatic relations with Finland in February 1959. Similarly irritating to Kekkonen’s regime was Kari’s caricature titled Satu porkkanasta (The Tale of the Carrot’), which deviously referred to the occasion of celebrating the tenth anniversary of the returning of the Porkkala peninsula to Finland in 1966. Porkkala had been leased to the Soviet Union, according to the peace treaty in 1945, for 90 years, but Khrushchev gave it back to Finland in 1955
