I remember reading about this guy…he was a colonel in the Swedish Air Force. I think his name was Stig Wennerstrom. Anyway, he became a spy for the Russians, and wound up selling lots of defense secrets for cash. He was eventually caught and jailed.
Since Sweden is a neutral country, why were the Russians so interested in Swedish military capabilities?
-Wennerstrom was a fairly low-level officer. How would he have lifted secret documents without arousing suspicion?
-Did the Russians pay well? I understand that most spies get caught, because they start living a lavish lifestyle (on a colonel’s pay)-was this the case with Wennerstrom?
Finally, was Wennerstom subjetc to a lot of abuse upon his release? i can’t imagine the guy was too popular with his neighbors.
Splutter! He was a colonel. Head of a section.
At the time he was active, Sweden had the world’s fourth largest air force. Neutral or not, Russia had to be VERY interested in that large an air power within striking distance of their borders. Sweden is still an air power of considerable size, though I don’t know their current rank.
Also, Sweden had a nuclear weapons program. In the late 60s, budgetary constraints forced them to choose between the nuclear program and development of a new jet fighter. They chose the latter. The air distance from Stockholm to Moscow is less than 800 miles.
As someone else has already pointed out, a colonel is not exactly a low-rank officer. Wennerström started selling secrets to the Soviet Union when he served as military attaché at the Swedish embassy in Moscow and he did it not primarily for money, he later claimed, but because he thought it would keep up the terror balance. It was later shown that he had started his career as a spy during WWII, when he sold Swedish military secrets to Germany.
Anyway, Swedish security agencies had become suspicious about him already in 1943, but they couldn’t pinpoint anything. In the late fifties his cleaning lady was recruited as an agent and it was she who eventually came up with evidence against him.
He first got a life sentence, which was later converted to twenty years and was released after having served half that time, when it was deemed that his knowledge about military secrets was outdated. The last time in prison he worked as a language teacher in a borstal not far from where I lived. He had also served time at Långholmen prison in the middle of Stockholm, now converted to a hotel, where, as it happens, an uncle of mine worked hours as a dentist and had him as a patient.
He was 67 when he was released and he just retired into oblivion. Not much was heard about him.
Sweden has never had a nuclear weapons programme, although there were people who wanted one during the cold war, but they were always down voted.
Wiki has an article on the “Swedish nuclear weapon program”:
Another account says:
from 7.4 States Formerly Possessing or Pursuing Nuclear Weapons
I would accept that it’s a matter of semantics, as it never progressed beyond the planning stages. Such plans being kicked around would certainly have interested the Soviets.
Thanks for the replies…my memory has been jogged.
In the days just before the fall of the Soviet Union, Swedish Naval authorities were embarrassed to learn that their top secret base (Karlskrona) had been penetrated by a spy submarine. The sub had tracks, and propelled itself on the ocean floor like a tank.
I never read any more about this-was the offending craft ever identified? And what kind of stuff did the Soviets get?
Sweden is also a big fat buffer on the way to Norway: a NATO country and a stepping stone to Iceland. Also, the Swedish military has long been chummy with NATO, participating in NATO exercises and such.
I naturally have no cite, but Sweden very likely was close, and probably had one under wraps. I think that a lot of the civil nuclear research had some military application.
Never substantiated as far as I know. You do forget about Whiskey on the Rocks though.
kombatminipig has answered about the sub that stranded outside Karlskrona after a misnavigation (it wasn’t near the naval base I understand). As for the rest of the submarine hysteria it was in the archipelago outside Stockholm where there are two bases, Muskö and Berga. The sub chasers heard all sorts of sounds that were interpreted as emanating from foreign submarines and photographed strange patterns on the seabed. The sounds have later been identified as possibly coming from chirping minks and farting herrings.
That is sort of true, although never really acknowledged by Swedish authorities, but joint exercises with NATO is a fairly new practice in the context.
After having done my homework I have to agree that there once was a nuclear weapons programme “just in case”, but I don’t think there were any definite plans to get The Bomb.
Im betting that since sweden was a neutral country , they wanted just enough knowledge on how to make a bomb. So if it came down to it, the time from authorization to assemble the device to the time its actually assembled and uploaded to some viggen or what have you , would be perhaps weeks.
Declan
Intelligence officers stress that they study “capabilities, not intentions.” Any conceivable threat (and some that aren’t really conceivable, like long-term allies) is analyzed, because what if there’s a change of policy or government? What if we’re being lied to or misled?
I probably will never know what you’re thinking or what you will do. What you might be able to do with your current technology and military strength can, on the other hand, be analyzed and prepared for.