TIME: Almanac of the 20th Century

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<text> <title> (1986) Sweden's Prime Minister Assassinated </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1986 Highlights </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> March 10, 1986 WORLD Bloody Blow to an Open Society </hdr> <body> Shots in the night kill Olof Palme, an advocate of peace It had been a relaxing evening for Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, 59, and his wife Lisbeth. They had just been to an evening showing of the new Swedish film The Brothers Mozart in a downtown Stockholm cinema and had decided to take a walk afterward. For the slight, hawk-nosed Swedish politician with a ready smile, it had always been a matter of pride that he sometimes permitted himself to wander freely about the capital, unencumbered by the phalanx of bodyguards that protect other European heads of government. As the Palmes walked along Sveavagen, Stockholm's well-lighted main thoroughfare, a dark-haired man wearing a blue ski jacket walked briskly up the couple, pulled out a handgun and fired two shots at close range. A bullet struck the Prime Minister in the back, and he crumpled to the snow-covered pavement. A taxi driver heard the shots and immediately called for help. When police arrived, Mrs. Palme, herself grazed across the back by a bullet, said, "Don't you recognize me? My Olof has been shot." Within minutes Palme was rushed to Sabbatsberg Hospital, where doctors struggled in vain to keep him alive. At six minutes past midnight Saturday morning he was declared dead. Palme thus became the first Swedish leader to be killed since King Gustav III was shot to death at a masked ball at Stockholm's opera house in 1792. Police sealed off all exits to the city for hours after the shooting, called a national alert, and stepped up patrols at border crossings. It was the largest manhunt in Sweden's history, but as the week began, no arrests had been made. Police speculated that the murder might have been committed by any number of disaffected groups, from Croatian nationalists to West German terrorist factions. Palme's assassination sent a wave of revulsion across Sweden, which for decades has advertised itself as a model society largely devoid of the social strains that create such wrenching political violence. Stunned Swedes tossed red roses on the murder site; some placed candles on the sidewalk. By Saturday morning, the lines of mourners wound around the block. On a wall a banner was hung, reading: WHY MURDER A TRUE DEMOCRAT? "It is an almost unbelievable shock," said Ulf Adelsohn, leader of the conservative opposition in the country's one-house parliament. "Sweden will never be the same after this." Following an all-night meeting of key Swedish leaders, Acting Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson, 51, who was promptly designated Palme's successor as party chief, announced that the government would be dissolved, but would act on an interim basis until parliament meets this week to choose a new Prime Minister. Said Carlsson: "This was a blow not just to Olof Palme and his family but to Sweden as an open society." Condolences poured into Stockholm from all over the world, with many noting the irony that a man so devoted to peace and nonviolence could be assaulted in anger. President Ronald Reagan expressed his "great shock" and "sorrow in the face of this senseless act of violence." Said British Labor Party Spokesman George Foulkes: "It is an absolute tragedy. He was a very good man, a very peace-loving man." Born into a well-to-do-family and educated in the best schools, Palme built his career on his reputation as a friend of the laboring classes and of the poor and oppressed everywhere. His egalitarianism and idealism often got him into trouble, not only with conservatives at home but in the international arena, where he sometimes seemed most comfortable. Palme first came to public attention in the U.S. in 1968 when, as Sweden's Education Minister, he marched side by side with the North Vietnamese Ambassador to Moscow at a rally to protest the American role in the Vietnam War. As Prime Minister in 1972 he compared the U.S. bombing of Hanoi to the Nazi bombing of Guernica. That and other pronouncements so infuriated President Richard Nixon that he told the Swedes their Ambassador was no longer welcome in Washington. While in recent years relations have been less stormy, the U.S. and Sweden have often been at odds. Palme was a firm backer of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and was seen by the U.S. as too sympathetic to the Soviet position on questions of peace and the nuclear buildup. Asked last summer what he and President Reagan might have in common if they were to meet, Palme said with a twinkle, "I suppose you could say we share the same political slogan--stay the course." One of the formative experiences of Palme's life was a sojourn to the U.S. in 1948. He zipped through four years at Kenyon College in Ohio in one year, then took a four-month hitchhiking tour of 34 states. The poverty he saw amid plenty, he would say later, helped him develop the intensely personal and emotional commitment to Swedish-style socialism that guided him all his life. Returning home to Sweden, he received a law degree at the University of Stockholm in 1951 and immediately plunged into Social Democratic politics. A protege of longtime Prime Minister Tage Erlander's, Palme rose swiftly. He won Cabinet rank in 1963, and when he replaced Erlander as Prime Minister six years later, became the youngest head of government in Europe. In 1976 a center-right coalition drove the socialists from office for the first time in 44 years. Palme led the opposition and worked as a troubleshooter in the Middle East for the United Nations. The center-right government of Thorbjorn Falldin eventually foundered during the worldwide recession following the 1979 oil shocks, and in 1982 Palme and his socialists were returned to power. Palme's economic policies, especially the creation of controversial union-dominated investment funds, sparked angry protests. Nonetheless, his mandate was renewed again only last September in one of the sweetest electoral triumphs of his career. "We've won the victory for the welfare state," he exulted. As numb and disbelieving Swedes gathered last week to stare at the small pool of blood in the snow where their leader had been gunned down, they wept not just in grief at the death of a shrewd and compassionate man, but at their unwelcome entry into the era of political terrorism. As one commentator eloquently observed, "The time of political innocence in Sweden has come to an end." By Michael S. Serrill. Reported by William McWhirter and John Kohan/Bonn VANISHING FACE ON A QUIET STREET Baffled police put out a dragnet for Palme's killer It was the kind of coincidence that police often depend upon to solve difficult crimes. A 22-year-old woman was walking along a street in central Stockholm shortly before midnight on Feb. 28 when a man ran by her and paused under a streetlight. In that brief instant, she got a good look at the person who not only moments before may have gunned down Prime Minister Olof Palme. The woman turned out to be a portrait artist, and last week she helped police assemble a composite sketch of the suspected assassin. Copies of the computer-enhanced likeness were immediately transmitted around the world by wire services. Said Stockholm Police Commissioner Hans Holmer: "This is the first witness who has given us a face." By week's end the sketch had produced no arrests. Danish police briefly detained two Yugoslavs after they crossed from Sweden to Denmark on a ferry, then released them. Commissioner Holmer revealed at a midweek new conference that his officers had followed up on 4,000 heads and interviewed 600 people. He also announced that the 120-officer team investigating the case was being expanded to 300, and tat the police were offering an unprecedented $70,000 reward for information leading to the assassin's conviction. Said Holmer: "This is a murder that cannot be compared to any other." The commissioner fended off accusations that his men had bungled the probe from the beginning. Swedish newspapers charged that police were slow in cordoning off the scene of the crime and did not set up roadblocks out of the city until 90 minutes after the murder. Investigators were reportedly so sloppy in examining the scene that the only physical evidence of the shooting, two bullets, was actually found by passersby. And police drew scorn upon themselves when they publicly announced their puzzlement at the origin and uniqueness of the copper-tipped .357 Magnum cartridges, which could have been purchased in a sporting-goods store a block away from the Prime Minister's office. More troubling, it was still unclear whether the assassination was politically motivated. Police remained skeptical of claims by the West German terror group the Red Mary Faction that it was responsible. Attention instead focused on activists from the obscure Kurdish Workers' Party, a group of political exiles from Turkey who, last August, vowed vengeance against the Swedish government for labeling them "terrorists." Stepped-up security measures since the murder include two bodyguards at all times in public for acting Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson, who was replaced Palem as Social Democratic Party leader and will probably be named Prime Minister next week. Carlsson will speak at funeral services for Palme, scheduled for Marhc 15 at Stockholm's city hall. A panoply of world leaders, including Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, will attend. In keeping with the slain Prime Minister's disdain for dictatorships, five countries--Chile, Afghanistan, Paraguay, Kampuchea and South Africa--were pointedly excluded from the ceremonies. By Michael S. Serrill. Reported by John Kohan/Stockholm. March 24, 1986 STARTING OVER IN STOCKHOLM Palme's successor is chosen The irony is inevitable. While Olof Palme's life reflected his belief in an open society, his funeral was surrounded by the tightest security Stockholm had ever seen. As the hand-drawn catafalque carrying the slain Prime Minister's coffin wound through the streets, 2,000 police, paramilitary troops and army sharpshooters watched, guns at the ready, from street corners and rooftops. Half a million Swedes watched the procession, along with more than 600 foreign dignitaries, including 13 Presidents and 19 Prime Ministers. "There are few statesmen who have had such influence on international affairs and social change," said United Nations Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar at a memorial service at Stockholm's city hall. Said U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz, who met privately with Soviet Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov to discuss bilateral concerns shortly after the funeral: "Palme was a man of compassion. We share your grief." The somber ceremony marked a kind of coming-of-age for a country long untouched by political violence. The man who was tapped to launch the new era in Sweden is Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson, 51, the mild-mannered politician elected by Parliament three days earlier to succeed Palme. After the new Prime Minister had spent a week in the public eye and held a series of meetings with visiting foreign leaders, the contrast with his predecessor was vivid. While Palme often dazzled his listeners with his rhetorical brilliance, Carlsson's speeches tended to be as wooden as Swedish birch. And while Palme could be arrogant and abrasive, Carlsson seemed cautious and conciliatory, more given to self- deprecation than grand gestures. But straitlaced Swedes, many of whom did not always approve of Palme's flamboyant ways, welcomed the new leader. Said a Social Democratic loyalist: "If Swedes make any comparisons, they will most likely be to Carlsson's advantage." Noted one young economist: "Political life will be boring without Palme, but hopes are now pinned on Carlsson's being a man of cooperation." Born Nov. 9, 1934, in a provincial town of Boras in southwest Sweden, Carlsson grew up on modest circumstances. The son of a seamstress and coffee-factory worker, he graduated from a commercial high school and went on to earn a degree in political science at the University of Lund in 1958. With Palme, Carlsson became a political protege of Prime Minister Tage Erlander, the architect of the Swedish welfare state. His first major post was as Minister of Education in the government formed by Prime Minister Palme in 1969. Carlsson served Palme until his death, acting as his personal deputy and attending to the mundane details of political life that did not interest his boss. Now that the understudy has the starring role, political observers wonder whether Carlsson will maintain the high international profile that Palme fashioned for Sweden or will preoccupy himself with domestic issues. He takes office at a time when many Swedes are beginning to view Sweden's cradle-to-grave social-service system as a drain on their prosperity. There is some question whether Carlsson can provide the leadership to continue to fend off challenges from the nonsocialist opposition. Carlsson says that little will change, especially in foreign affairs. "It has been the Swedish attitude that it is not only up to the superpowers to decide about the future of the world," he told a press conference last week. The new Prime Minister insists that he will be a persistent critic of the arms race and a strong supporter of the Third World. For starters, Carlsson will travel to the Soviet Union in April to attend already scheduled meetings with Communist Party Leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Three days before the former Prime Minister was buried, the search for his killer finally produced an arrest. Police jailed a Swedish man in his 30s on suspicion of "complicity" in the murder. The suspect, who was not named, had been near the scene of the crime when it happened. His lawyer, who admitted that his client bore a "certain resemblance" to a police sketch of the killer, insisted that he was innocent. By Michael S. Serrill. Reported by Julian Isherwood and John Kohan/Stockholm. </body> </article> </text>