FINLAND: Seven Come Eight

When Britain set out to counter the six-nation European Common Market with a European free-trade area of its own—knitting together the Scandinavian countries, Portugal, Switzerland and Austria—Finland badly wanted to join to make this Outer Seven an Outer Eight. But President Urho Kekkonen, a longtime neutralist who stoutly insists that Finland's future must be based on Soviet-Finnish "friendship," said nothing doing. Russia, Kekkonen argued, would be displeased if Finland participated in a non-Communist trade bloc.

In July, when the Outer Seven put into effect its first mutual 20% tariff reduction, the...