90 years old | Diplomat Klaus Törnudd has been monitoring world politics since the 1950s

Diplomat Klaus Törnuddin political experiences span vast times and worlds.

With his parents, he followed the events of the Ariadne ship of Jewish refugees on the shores of the Market Square in the fall of 1938. “The ship had a lot of people flashing at the townspeople. They were not allowed off the ship, ”he recalls.

And soon the ship and its passengers were returned to Germany.

The other side of the memory is the episode at the heart of world politics: Törnudd represented Finland at the UN Security Council in the late 1980s. The episode was hopeful with the end of the Cold War, on the one hand, and the tragic crisis in the Gulf, on the other. Saddam Hussein Iraq conquered Kuwait, and the UN retaliated.

“The invasion of Kuwait was a flagrant violation of the UN Charter, to which we responded with sanctions, and the Security Council authorized the use of all means to end the occupation,” Törnudd emphasizes.

Then, when the US coalition went to war against Iraq in 1991, Finland no longer sat on the Security Council.

“At the end of the 1980s, the world seemed to be changing, and within the United Nations, cooperation was slipping and results were achieved.”

In the 1950s You broke a professor Jan-Magnus Jansson as a model student. It was by no means self-evident that he would surrender to the path of diplomacy, as his dissertation on international politics in his thirties had raised positive attention.

“There was an assistant position at Hanken, but I rejected it. And I soon had the opportunity to serve as an ambassador Ralph Enckellin as an assistant at our UN mission in New York. “

The road in diplomacy meandered well. However, Törnudd is Keijo Korhonen alongside the few exceptions in the State Department that have occasionally moved to the professorship – Törnudd on two occasions.

Törnudd worked at the forefront of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the 1970s and 1980s, when the pressure of the Soviet Union to maintain Finland’s neutrality intensified from time to time.

“If Urho Kekkonen and Mauno Koivisto indeed, they looked a little higher, we officials, of course, considered the everyday struggle for neutrality to be paramount. There was a struggle for the spots of the communicators, on the other hand, the concrete intentions of the Kremlin had to be rejected – for example, interference with our freedom of the press, ”Törnudd reflects.

The most serious threats to destabilize our position, however, were vigorously repelled by Finland, he adds.

Cooperation It was diverse with Koivisto. Törnudd often accompanied him on state visits, supporting the president with ideas and writing his speeches.

Koivisto’s well-known correspondence with the President George HW Bushin with Törnudd also participated in drafting reply letters. “I went for those signs Jaakko Kalelan a couple of times also at Koivisto in Tähtelä, Inkoo. ”

Klaus Törnudd’s long career had time to branch out in different directions; he was one of the top all-around diplomats in the State Department. But which in retrospect feels most own and closest, the field of the Academy or diplomacy?

“Quantitatively, the latter, why not a great scientist, I was never a great scientist,” he laughs modestly.

The world situation the scholarly connoisseur will not rejoice in current developments.

“Our liberal democracy is cramped and authoritarian forces have strengthened. And our neighbor Russia has sunk to an ever-worse level, ”he estimates.

“And there has been no decent response to major global environmental and demographic problems, only some progress has been made in eradicating poverty.”

“The situation is pretty sad.”