Stockholm and Vietnam
Stockholm in 1967 was a centre of international criticism of the Vietnam War. The most important event of the year was not a student uprising but the first session of the Russell Tribunal, held in the Swedish capital in May 1967. Student radicalism in the city is better documented in 1968. This article follows the sequence in order and is open about which events fall in which year.
Sweden’s position
Sweden was a neutral country with a long-governing Social Democratic party and a tradition of speaking out on international issues. The government under Tage Erlander criticised the American war in Vietnam more openly than most Western European governments, and Swedish public opinion was sympathetic to protest. That unusual position meant that Swedish activism often had official sympathy, or at least official tolerance, something that was less common in other Western countries.
The Swedish Vietnam movement
During the mid-1960s a network of Vietnam groups emerged. Some of them concentrated on information and humanitarian aid, while others, often called NLF groups after the South Vietnamese National Liberation Front, openly supported the Vietnamese side. Supporters included students, intellectuals, church members and political activists. Demonstrations in Stockholm in the later 1960s were commonly accompanied by torchlight, banners and speeches.
As the war deepened, so did the movement. The bombing campaign Rolling Thunder and the reports of heavy fighting made Vietnam a constant news subject, and Swedish protesters were part of the wider international antiwar protests of the period. It is not possible to give reliable turnout figures for particular 1967 marches here, so none are offered.
The Russell Tribunal, May 1967
The International War Crimes Tribunal, initiated by Bertrand Russell and associated with Jean-Paul Sartre and other intellectuals, held its first session in Stockholm in early May 1967. A second session followed in Denmark, at Roskilde, in November and December 1967. The tribunal examined evidence about the American conduct of the war, including attacks on civilian targets, and heard witnesses from Vietnam.
It had no legal power, and critics said it was one-sided. Its supporters said that a public hearing was a way of collecting testimony and challenging official accounts. Either way, it made Stockholm a stage for international attention in 1967, and it gave Swedish activists a role as hosts. This was a distinctive 1967 event, and probably the most precise answer to the question of what happened in Stockholm that year.
Deserters and asylum
Sweden also became known as a refuge for American servicemen who refused to fight. A group of US sailors who had deserted in Japan reached Sweden in late 1967 and were allowed to stay, a decision that attracted considerable attention. The wider history of GI resistance is much larger than the Swedish part of it, but Sweden’s willingness to accept deserters, and the later arrival of draft evaders fleeing the Selective Service draft, became one of the sharpest points of friction with Washington. Details of individual cases are best left to specialist accounts.
February 1968: Palme and the torchlight march
The best-known Stockholm demonstration took place on 21 February 1968. Olof Palme, then Sweden’s education minister and a rising figure in the Social Democratic Party, took part in a torchlight procession against the war together with the North Vietnamese ambassador, who was then posted in Moscow. For a minister of a Western European government to march alongside an envoy of North Vietnam was unusual, and it caused a diplomatic row with the United States. Washington recalled its ambassador for a period afterwards.
This event is often attached to 1967 by mistake, since the Swedish movement had been building throughout that year. The march took place weeks after the Tet Offensive, which had changed the mood in many countries. Palme became prime minister in 1969.
The student occupation of 1968
Student radicalism in Stockholm took a visible form in 1968. In spring, reportedly in late May, students occupied the student union building in the city, and the action formed part of the broader wave of European university protest after the May events in France. Participants discussed university reform, student influence in decision-making, and the relationship of the university to society. As with many such occupations, the participants held varied views, ranging from reformist to revolutionary.
The occupation is a 1968 event. It should not be read back into 1967, a year in which Stockholm’s headline moment was the tribunal rather than a student sit-in.
Summing up the sequence
The order is straightforward. In the mid-1960s a Vietnam movement formed. In May 1967 the Russell Tribunal sat in Stockholm. In late 1967 US deserters arrived and the tribunal’s second session met in Denmark. In February 1968 Palme marched. In 1968 students occupied their union building. Together they show a city in which student activism was part of a larger political culture of protest, one that had unusual access to government and public institutions.