In 1989 the Soviet empire started to collapse.
A historic victory. It could be that the Secret Committee of US
President Ronald Reagan contributed to it.
Herb Mayer, CIA vice-chief of Intelligence
- They stopped playing defense and began to play offense.
That was the great shift that changed the course of world history.
Thomas Reed, Special Questions Advisor
We could have brought them to their knees if we wanted.
Did the Committee in fact exist?
What methods did Reagan’s soldiers use?
John Lemann, the Minister of the US Navy
- The use of deception
could make it appear to the Soviets to be 20 feet tall.
Admiral James ‘Ace’ Lyons
- You have to go out and physically demonstrate...
For the first time, witnesses tell of those events.
Mathias Mossberg, the Secretary General
for 3d Submarine Investigation Board.
- They made fools of the Swedish parliament and government
as well as Swedish media. What world do we actually live in?
Deception: Reagan’s Method
A film by Dirk Polmann
Submarines against Olof Palme
The next target is a supposed neutral state in the North of Europe -
Sweden. Only the Baltic Sea separates it from the Soviet Union
Ula Tunander:
Sweden was actually extremely important
in case of a future World War.
Sweden was located northward of Germany
and was kind of an unsinkable aircraft-carrier
that the US could operate from.
Since 1960 Sweden had been integrated in plans of NATO militarization.
In the 1960's, Swedish Air Forces ranked 4th strongest in the world.
The US Army counted on Sweden’s secret loyalty to NATO.
Ula Tunander:
- Since 1960, Sweden was preparing to
receive US aircraft on its territory.
There was a direct phone line with
the headquarters of US Navy in Wiesbaden.
Ingemar Engman:
- We prepared airfields, on which the American jet airplanes
could have landed on their way eastwards.
The USA needed Sweden as an 'aircraft-carrier'.
And besides: the Soviet Union would be forced to fight on two fronts.
There’s an extremely conservative elite in the Swedish Army,
an economy and aristocracy completely aligned with the USA
that treats social-democrats with deep mistrust.
Ula Fritjofson:
- In social-democratic Sweden it was perhaps
the most powerful social-democratic party in the world.
A charismatic leader, Olof Palme –
a man of indisputable international renoun.
A man who had enemies.
Ula Tunander:
- It was the social-democratic government of the country.
But there’re also ruling elites who shared quite different views.
They were closely related to the USA and Great Britain.
And this means that you have a divided Sweden.
Once I was invited for dinner with James Schlesinger -
the former US Secretary of Defense and Director of CIA.
I asked him what he thought of Sweden
at the time he had occupied his position.
And he asked me: ‘What Sweden?
The political Sweden or the military Sweden?’
At the end of 60's, beginning of 70's, the Vietnam War
shook up the Western states and deeply divided society.
Outraged youth organized demonstrations all over the world.
Olof Palme led demonstrations criticizing US policy
together with the North Vietnamese Ambassador.
The case is exactly one for the Committee.
In 1981 Palme is still the opposition leader
But a year later he wins the elections and has brilliant ratings.
Palme’s and Reagan’s plans are as much as fire and water.
However the Committee can use the preliminary work of the CIA.
Since 70's, the US Secret Service had been scheming
against Palme on Swedish territory.
Reagan and Casey knew: Palme is considered to be a traitor
among Swedish security agencies.
Besides, important Swedish admirals are on their side.
John Lehman:
- Certainly there were efforts to see that the Swedish military
addressed the demands of NATO strategies and ideas,
and that Sweden had access to technologies
needed to defend their neutrality.
On the morning of October 28th, 1981
the Chief of Swedish Naval Staff in Karlsrona
receives an unexpected report:
Fishermen found a submarine washed ashore.
Commander Karl Andersson immediately heads there.
Karl Andersson:
- As soon as we called in at Gosefjerden I slowed down.
And suddenly I saw a black and green
Whiskey-class submarine 100 meters in front of me.
It was obviously a Russian submarine.
The highest rank aboard was the Chief of Brigade Staff
from the city of Baltiysk – Joseph Avrukevich.
He had navigated the submarine along quite a narrow fjord.
The commander Peter Gushchin was forced
to follow Avrukevich’s instructions.
Karl Andersson:
- I could never understand what kind of commander he was
or what the operation was meant to be.
I actually didn’t even think of that because
it was incredibly stupid to call in at Gosefjerden
since a submarine could run aground.
The submarine had been drifting for a long time
until Avrukevich, guided by a beacon, steered the submarine
into the fairway of the just 100 meter wide Gosefjerden.
Karl Andersson:
- They could hire a fishing boat under the guise
of a Swedish flag for that purpose.
But it was a very stupid decision
to call in there with a submarine.
The public will discover: the submarine was sent to spy.
In a fjord that it couldn’t submerge into,
since there was 1.5 m of water under the keel?
Anderson notes that the person who was responsible
for making decisions was the mysterious Chief of Staff Avrukevich.
He then received an order not to interrogate him.
Karl Andersson:
- Yes, I received this exact order.
I received orders to interrogate Gushchin only,
the watch officer, the signaler and the navigator.
I was prohibited from interrogating anyone else.
Swedish Naval Forces sent a diver under water.
Their footage is being officially shown here for the first time ever.
They make a startling discovery.
A big sand dune formed behind the marine propeller.
Ula Tunander:
- In front of the propeller there was no sand dune.
That meant someone wanted the submarine
to run further against the rocks, to stay there.
And then it was turned around more than 50 degrees
so the submarine would really get stuckin the rocks
so it wouldn't slide off.
To sum up: A supposed spy submarine put into
the extremely narrow fjord, where there's almost no water
under the keel and will sooner or later run aground.
When it happened, the engines continued to work at full capacity.
The submarine crawled further onto the rocks until it got stuck.
But one mustn't interrogate the officer
responsible for this insane operation.
‘Whiskey on the rocks’ hit the headlines.
Sweden is shocked and indignant.
Olof Palme wins the elections in 1982.
He wants to achieve neutrality, disarmament
and nonalignment to the military blocs for Sweden.
Confrontation mitigation; but Reagan wanted just the opposite.
Therefore the ‘Deception Committee’ begins to project
the operation of psychological warfare.
A pretense of reality that should return Sweden back on the course
that corresponds to the Reagan strategy.
Two weeks after Palme took office a submarine’s periscope
was detected at a Swedish naval base Muskö.
It could be – and everyone claimed they were:
only Soviet submarines after ‘Whiskey on the Rocks’.
Ula Tunander:
- They showed their periscopes and cone towers to the public.
A submarine's captain shouldn’t do that.
Mathias Mossberg:
- Why did they want to be seen?
To turn the trick. And they did that very well.
A few hours after the submarines had been detected,
the Swedish Naval Forces convene a press conference.
More than 750 journalists from all over the world report
on Swedish Naval Forces with arms ready in hand
but without success; hunt for the Soviet submarines.
Is it just a pretense for media?
In the following years, the hunt for submarines
repeats hundreds of times.
Foreign submarines are seen in front of the Royal Palace
and in front of summerhouses and naval bases.
While Palme negotiates with the Soviets on disarmament
and proposals of peace, Soviet Military Forces
apparently pretend to want it.
Moscow is confused.
No one has given such orders to their military.
Or are there self-ruling captains?
Palme protests
to the Soviet Ambassador again and again.
In the end the latter passes a proposal from the Kremlin.
Boris Pankin, the Soviet Ambassador to Sweden:
- If you think our submarines are there, you can bomb them.
But we know there are none,
that’s why we are not afraid of any bombing.
Endless, unsuccessful war against
the ghost submarines has its consequences.
Ulf Svenson:
- It was impossible for Palme to do anything alse
than to decisively blame the Russians.
It was difficult to ensure the policy of ‘common security’
in relation to the communist states.
The leaders of Swedish Naval Forces
sunk not a single enemy submarine but it successfully torpedoed
Palme’s ‘common security’ policy.
Without the Swedish media, this operation would fail.
Mathias Mossberg:
- The media were very much taking the lead
in blowing up this issue according to
the information they got from our militaries.
From 1981 to 1983, the number of Swedes
who felt there was a Soviet threat increased from 27% to 83%.
Boris Pankin, the Soviet Ambassador to Sweden:
- I would like to mention why it bothers me now.
It turned out that even in such an educated, Western-European state,
in such a bulwark of democracy, it was quite easy
to distract vast masses of people and brainwash them, to zombify them.
Since 1983, three investigations
imto the submarines scam were carried out.
Mathias Mossberg:
- The first inquiry concluded that it was Soviet submarines.
The second concluded that this could not be proven.
Then a few years went by and an interview
came out with Caspar Weinberger, the US Secretary of Defense,
who clearly said that the US was involved in this.
Caspar Weinberger, the US Secretary of Defense:
- There was no direct insertion or testing of
Swedish defense without consultion,
when speaking of the agreement.
Keith Speed, the British Navy Minister:
- There were exercise attacks.
Could the submarines infiltrate their waters
and emerge at the port in Stockholm?
Well, that’s not quite the thing but something like that.
How far could we go?
During my administration, we had Oberon-class and Porpoise-class
diesel submarines for that purpose.
It's quite clear: Swedish Naval Forces’ leadership knew
NATO’s submarines were in Swedish territorial waters.
Why had they kept silent back then?
And what part had the Americans and British played?
Mathias Mossberg:
- Obviously we needed to go into the question again.
They instituted a new inquiry
and appointeded me as Secretary General.
Mossberg found a document in the Muskö naval base archives.
Several senior admirals were worried about
Weinberger’s statement and wanted to be prepared.
Mathias Mossberg:
- To the effect we had to coordinate our response to this.
I wanted to take a copy of this document.
But our military expert told us:
‘You don’t need to do that.
We have this at the office in Stockholm’.
I believed him. When I came back to our office
it turned that we didn’t have this document at all.
And next time we went back to that archive
that particular document had disappeared.
So these were the kind of things we had to fight with.
The board faced resistance:
Access to the archives was denied and it discovered
that the military destroyed important evidence,
photographs and documents.
Mathias Mossberg:
- What we were dealing with was a certain group
that was not telling the government the full truth
about what they knew or had happened or was happening.
And they were taking decisions which had far-reaching implications
for Swedish defense and foreign policy.
They were decisions that were taken outside
the democratic framework of the Swedish government.
Then of course, you ask yourself where you are.
In a country, where the army conspired together with
a foreign power against its own Minister-President?
Mathias Mossberg:
- Sweden was taken for a ride.
Public opinion was taken for a ride,
Swedish parliament was taken for a ride,
Swedish government was taken for a ride, the press was taken for a ride.
What sort of world are we actually living in?
In a world where Olof Palme was murdered.
The killer hasn’t been found yet.
Mikhail Gorbachev, The President of the USSR
-I’m sure it was a political killing. It was a contract killing…
I don’t think he was murdered for some domestic reasons…
- Why do you think it was a political killing?
Because this man and the things he was proposing...
Their implementation involved the interests
of groups who weren't particularly interested
in making world a better place.