On The Finland Watch
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No country challenged the capacity of American Cold War policy to find a place for it as did Finland...a nation of demonstrated wartime courage and democratic conviction which had, nevertheless, to devise and pursue a foreign and security policy based on an accommodation with the Soviet Union. And no American diplomat was as intimately involved with relations between the United States and Finland as the author of this book, Ford Cooper. For well over a decade, from the mid 1970s to nearly the end of the 1980s, Mr. Cooper held senior positions from which he played a central role in shaping U.S.-Finnish policy in Helsinki as the American embassy counselor for political affairs, heading up the political analysis team and, later, as the deputy chief of mission (the second in command at the embassy) and as charge d’affaires in the absence of the ambassador, and in Washington, where he headed the State Department team charged with the day-to-day oversight of the relationship. Indeed, as director of the office of Northern European affairs as the Cold War began to change and the dialogue between President Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev began to create new opportunities for Finland in its relations with Western Europe, the United States, and the Soviet Union, Mr. Cooper was in a key position to develop and see to the implementation of political and economic policies that reflected new realities. Ford Cooper has been able to record his unique insights on Finland and U.S. policy in a way that allows us to share the life of an American diplomat and, more important, leads us to an evaluation of the policies and perceptions that governed Finland’s international relations during the Cold War. His broad experience in Finland helps him see issues as Finns saw them even as he was intimately involved in shaping the U.S. view of the same issues. As Mr. Cooper points out, the "opportunities for misunder-standing" were large and various. The book examines a number of specific, often sensitive and controversial issues that manifested themselves in Finland during the Cold War. Luckily for us, Mr. Cooper has had access to recently declassified diplomatic documents (a number of which he had written himself). He has spoken at length with an impressive range of important Finnish leaders and opinion makers who were his former professional contacts. While emphasizing events that took place when he personally was "On the Finland Watch," Mr. Cooper also reviews the relatively early post-World War II developments that were of pivotal importance in the evolution of Finnish policies during the Cold War. Ford Cooper and I served together for many of the years represented by his book. We were in Finland together at the end of the ‘70s. My admiration for his work there, and his special skills of judgment and insight, led me to seek him out to serve as a special assistant when I became counselor of the Department of State after the ambassadorship in Finland. Half a decade later, when I was assistant secretary of state for Europe and Canada, Ford Cooper was the director of Northern European affairs. I can say with confidence, and I hope with credibility, that Mr. Cooper accurately reflects how, over time, the team of American diplomats in Helsinki and in Washington worked to understand the Finnish policy context and point of view. It is no easier now to capture the spirit of the then-Finnish positions and policies than it was throughout the post-World War II years. Nonetheless, Ford Cooper could do it then, when he was a player, and he clearly can still do it, as author and diplomatic historian. He appropriately reminds us that the United States did not place Finland at the center of its interests. NATO and the US/NATO policy context largely shaped official views of the developments in the High North. The actions and words of Finnish leaders sometimes led to very real uncertainties about whether there was any awareness of, much less sensitivity to, U.S. and NATO concerns. Put another way, many Americans who held Finland in affectionate regard, who admired Finland’s ability to walk a difficult line, and who were prepared to make the case for Finland’s place in selected Western councils appropriate for neutral Finland, often found themselves with a weak case. Ford Cooper takes on the challenge of dealing effectively and instructively with this tough, and nuanced, feature of the relationship.
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About the Book
Finland's experiences during the Cold War were unique among all of the countries of Western Europe. Finland emerged from the turbulence of World War II in a precarious situation that threatened the country's very existence as a free and independent state. Attached and invaded by the Soviet Union in 1939, "brave little Finland" won the admiration of the world for the disastrous losses it inflicted on the vastly more numerous Red Army. Nevertheless, against the overwhelming onslaught of the masses of Soviet troops, Finland was obliged to accept in March 1940 an armistice that included ceding ten percent of its territory to the Soviet Union. When Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Finland adopted a policy of siding uncomfortably with "my enemy's enemy" and also attacked the Soviet Union, winning back the territory ceded in 1940 and establishing a defensive perimeter several scores of miles inside of the Soviet Union. From that position, Finland awaited the outcome of the titanic struggle between Nazi and Soviet forces. When it became clear that Germany would lose the war, Finland initiated contacts with the Soviet Union and reached a separate peace in 1944. Peace terms were highly onerous - including heavy war reparations and confirmation of the cession of territories to the Soviet Union - but appeared to permit the continuation of independence with Western political and social systems intact. The history of the Cold War in Finland is a story of how Finland was able, notwithstanding heavy pressures from its giant eastern neighbor, to preserve its independence and maintain its western values. From the onset of the Cold War in the late 1940s to its demise with the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the primary policy objective of the United States in Finland was to support the independence and credible neutrality of Finland. These remarkably consistent and unchanging U.S. goals closely paralleled Finland's own vital interests. Ironically, the parallel nature of the shared U.S. and Finnish interests was sometimes obscured because of Finland's overriding national policy objective - the lesson drawn from its wars with the Soviet Union - as a precondition to preserving its independence. This made it awkward if not impossible for the Finns to acknowledge that it was the Soviet Union itself that constituted the only threat to Finland's independence and neutrality. The difficulty of Finland's position, the United States' strong commitment to NATO and the resulting differences of our world perspective created occasional opportunities for misunderstandings between the two countries. This book describes U.S. policy towards Finland during the Cold War, drawing on recently declassified U.S. diplomatic reports. The book analyzes key developments in Finland during the Cold War and U.S. reactions to them. In addition to citing from U.S. diplomatic reports, the author also interviewed more than thirty important Finns (and two U.S. ambassadors) who were participants in or observers of some of these developments and cites their retrospective analyses of these events. Finally, the author, a former U.S. diplomat who served twice in Finland, relates interesting anecdotes about life in Finland in the 1970s and 1980s. This is the first book on Finland written by a U.S. diplomat in more than 20 years. The book was first published in Finland in the Finnish language in 1998 to favorable reviews. The first English version of the book was published in November 1999 by Regina Books of Claremont, California. Visit the book's website at www.finlandwatch.com for additional information regarding the book.
About the Author
A career U.S. Foreign Service Officer, James Ford Cooper was assigned to the American embassy in Helsinki twice for a combined period of nearly six years. He was political counselor of the embassy from 1976-79, responsible for analyzing Finnish domestic political and foreign policy developments and writing diplomatic reports on such developments back to Washington. He returned to Finland 1984-86 as deputy chief of mission (deputy ambassador) in which he was responsible under the ambassador for overseeing the operations of the embassy, coordinating its reporting, and providing policy recommendation to the U.S. government. In 1986, Mr. Cooper returned to the Department of State in Washington where he was director of the officer of Northern European affairs, responsible for overseeing U.S. relations with ten countries: the United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and the five Nordic countries (Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Iceland). In that position from 1986-88 Mr. Cooper continued his direct responsibilities for U.S./Finnish relations. Ambassador Rozanne Ridgway, who was the U.S. ambassador to Finland 1977-80 and assistant secretary of state for European and Canadian affairs 1985-89, wrote the foreword for this book. She states that "No American diplomat was as intimately involved with relations between the United States and Finland as the author of this book, Ford Cooper." She adds that "Ford Cooper has been able to record his unique insights on Finland and U.S. policy in a way that allows us to share the life of an American diplomat and, more important, leads us to an evaluation of the policies and perceptions that governed Finland's international relations during the Cold War." She concludes that, "Mr. Cooper's book makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of a complex relationship in a challenging time." Mr. Cooper retired from the Department of State in 1994 and commenced work on this book. It was published in the Finnish language in 1998 to favorable reviews.