U.S. At War: End of a Friendship

The Finnish charge d’affaires in the U.S., Alexander Thesleff, walked into the State Department at 11 a.m. one morning last week. Eleven minutes later Mr. Thesleff emerged, bearing a formal note, signed by Cordell Hull, ending diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Finland. Thus, in a manner as routine as dismissing an office boy, the U.S. ceased to have diplomatic relations with the ninth nation since World War II began,*and with a nation which for two decades had been a favorite of the U.S. public.

A few more Finns will go home; a few more Americans will return from Helsinki; good people in both lands will grieve that this had to be. But soon, perhaps, a Finland liberated from the Nazis could be friends again with a victorious U.S.

* The other eight: Germany, Italy, Japan, Bulgaria, Rumania, Hungary, Thailand, Vichyfrance.