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Eleven: Urho

The man looked at his desktop, with a pile of memos cluttering his inbox. Work tended to pile up when you travel abroad, he knew. He was kind of itching to get to work, to get the backlog under control, but then he did not have the time for that right now.

Just a few days ago, Urho Kekkonen had returned from Stockholm where he had attended the track and field match between Sweden and Finland. The games themselves had been a resounding success, which Kekkonen as the chairman of the Finnish Olympic Committee had been happy to tell to domestic and foreign journalists. While the athletes and officials of the Finnish national team had returned home on a Finnish Steamship Company passenger vessel, Kekkonen himself had taken an airplane home. As the Minister of the Interior, he did not have the luxury right now for a cruise in the summery Turku archipelago, much as he woud have enjoyed to spend some time with the finest young athletes Finland had to offer. Not only was Kekkonen a sporting man to his core [1], he also had an eye for female beauty. Nowhere was the wholesome ideal of classic beauty and fitness represented as well as among young female athletes, the man had always thought.

Even while Finland's sports victories had continued over the week in the international competition held on the new swim stadium in Helsinki, and even while the Finnish press was full of hype about the upcoming 1940 Olympics, Kekkonen felt sort of gloomy today. First of all, this was to do with the condition of President Kallio. It had been several days now since Kallio's accident, and the president of the Republic showed no signs of recovering from his condition. He was continually unconscious, and as far as the Minister of the Interior knew, some of the doctors attending Kallio were starting to call it a coma.

The conclusion was clear: the president was unable to prosecute his duties, and very soon now, the Finnish parliament would have to convene to elect a new president for Finland. The thing was, though, that it was still the holiday season, the very height of it in fact. Most parliamentarians were spending time at home all around Finland. Rounding them up prematurely would be something of a hassle. Another thing were the bloody wargames starting in and around Viipuri – most of the highest political and military leadership were due to attend, and thus as long as the exercises were ongoing, nothing of importance would happen in the capital, not anything the parliament and cabinet would take part in.

Kekkonen was already thinking about who the new president would be. The National Coalition Party would put up P.E. Svinhufvud, predictably, and he would also have some support – despite the far right having turned against him in the 30s. But then ”Ukko-Pekka” was already pushing 80. Did Finland really need another sick old man at the helm, in times like these? What had happened to Kallio was a warning, the bald man in his late 30s thought. It looked like things were turning rough in Europe. What the nation needed was someone with strength and youthful vigor. The job at hand required someone who had not yet passed his sell-by date.

Unfortunately, that someone would not be Urho Kaleva Kekkonen. The minister was not a stupid man, and he understood that his in the end failed quest to abolish the Patriotic People's Movement had soured the right wing towards him. Hope as he might, Kekkonen was a too divisive figure right now.

The man who seemed nearly predestined to become the next leader of Finland was Risto Ryti. A man on the rise, the central banker representing the Progress Party had support across party lines, he was seen as someone who could unify the country. Nobody hated him, and he was acceptable to the bourgeois parties as well as the Social Democrats. Kekkonen could in fact already see how the presidential election in the parliament would pan out: the SDP and Agrarians would put up people like Tanner and Kalliokoski to represent their parties pro forma, Svinhufvud would get some early support for the NCP, but eventually Ryti would win by a landslide.

The change of president would mean a government reshuffle, too. And while Kekkonen hoped he could keep his post with his party's support, he was not at all sure about that, either. Maybe he was too divisive even for that. He liked to hope that he was needed, but then he knew the saying about graveyards and indispensable men. Despite his own views on what Finland needed, and despite his obvious intelligence and capability, Kekkonen was an eminently replaceable man right now.

The bald man glanced out of the window, to see the tree-lined street running outside the ministry's buildings. A young woman in a light summer dress passed by, a slight breeze playing with the fabric. The bald man's mind wandered. A rather convoluted train of thought made him in the end think about haylofts, pastures and farming, and then he remembered that he would have to call his wife about when he was coming to Karelia. The Kekkonens had bought a farm near Viipuri just the previous year, and now Sylvi had been there to oversee some renovations while her husband was attending to affairs of state even if he should have been on his holiday. Kekkonen was going to attend the wargames as well, and he would use his estate in Vahviala as a base for the outing.

There was a knock on the door. Kekkonen's assistant opened it.

”Minister, Director Säippä's here.”

The Minister of the Interior looked at his watch. He had almost forgotten his appointment with the okhrana.

”Let him in.”

Paavo Säippä entered the room, and Kekkonen told him to sit down.

”So, how's the world looking like from Ratakatu's point of view?”[2]

The Director of the State Police shrugged.

”Nothing too much out of the ordinary. We're seeing an uptick in foreign operatives coming to Finland, though. In the last two weeks, we have identified new suspected intelligence people from Germany, Britain and the USSR, as well. We have of course interviewed most of them. One of them, the British character Max Bosley, even admitted that he works for the British authorities. His credentials check out, though, so we'll just keep an eye on him.”

”The rise in international tensions is apparent from your side as well, then?”

”Certainly. There is something there we would need to talk over...”

Kekkonen knew what Säippä was talking about. If things continued to deteriorate in Europe, and if the USSR kept acting ever more aggressively, sooner or later the State Police would have to start rounding up people deemed dangerous and put them into ”protective custody”. It would be mostly people from the far left, naturally, but not exclusively so. The far right was still very much in Kekkonen's sights as well.

”I expect you to update the lists of persons of interest”, he told Säippä, ”so that if the shit hits the fan, you can take action quickly and effectively.”

The director nodded.

”We're already on it. The holidays are slowing down our work a bit, though, and most men that are not on holiday are tied up in surveillance, and then in the operations with the Coast Guard...”

High summer was thirsty time, and it was also the high season of alcohol smuggling on the coasts. Despite the Prohibition being history, avoiding state taxes on booze was still a source of major profits to the right kind of an entrepreneur. The smugglers still plied their aquatic trade, and State Police detectives were still needed if not to apprehend them, then at least to inconvenience them.

”I'll be going back to holiday tomorrow, myself. To give you my professional opinion – nobody is going to coup the Finnish government in the next two weeks.”

Maybe so, Kekkonen thought. But with you on holiday, and most of the state leadership traipsing around the countryside in Viipuri, not to speak of most the standing military, too, Helsinki will be pretty much entirely devoid of adult supervision in the next ten days to come.

There was again a knock on the door.

”Sorry to disturb you, minister, director, but there's a Mrs. Durchman here, with an... ahem... entourage...”

Kekkonen smiled.

”I'm sorry, Paavo, I've another appointment. If you don't mind. Nurses.”

Säippä grinned.

”Nurses? You've got all the luck in the world, Urho. Well, all right. There was nothing pressing left, anyhow. Have a nice trip to Viipuri, we'll get back to it in a couple of weeks.”

Kekkonen wished his old colleague [3] a good continuation for his holidays, and then looked at the room fill with young women in white, led by the redoubtable Mrs. Aino Durchman.[4]

”Minister”, Durchman said with a smile, nodding.

Kekkonen smiled as well, standing up.

”Director Durchman, ladies. The new nursing school, eh?”

He looked at Durchman and pointed to the chair.

”Please. Convince me.”


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Notes:

[1] Urho Kekkonen was an active sports enthusiast in his youth, taking part in track and field competitions up to the national level. He won a Finnish championship in high jump and triple jump, and held a Finnish record in triple jump for several years. Since the early 30s, he had a leadership role in the Finnish Olympic Committee and the Finnish Amateur Athletics Association.

[2] Ratakatu 12 in Helsinki was the address of the State Police headquarters.

[3] Kekkonen worked as a detective in the State Police's earlier incarnation, Etsivä Keskuspoliisi (”Detective Central Police”) in the 1920s and knew Säippä from those days.

[4] Trained in the United States in the 1920s, Aino Durchman was a trailblazer of Finnish nursing practice and a long-time director of the Helsinki Nursing School.


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To Be Continued