Join us on June 2 for a discussion and presentation on The Finnish Front Line: Kekkonen, Kennedy, and Khrushchev’s Cold War Showdown with author Gordon F. Sander and Consul General of Finland Jarmo Sareva!
The Finnish Front Line is a historical biography of Urho Kekkonen, the eighth and longest-serving president of Finland. The most controversial as well as the most misunderstood figure in Finnish history, Kekkonen governed Finland for 25 years from 1956–81.
Gordon F. Sander focuses on Kekkonen’s pivotal first term as president, which was bracketed by two crises that together formed the template for both Finland’s relationship with the Soviet Union from 1956 through the fall of the USSR, and Kekkonen’s own “special” relationship with Moscow: the Night Frost crisis of 1957, which derived from the Kremlin’s desire to exert greater influence on Finnish politics, and the Note Crisis of 1961, which coincided with the great Berlin crisis of 1961, and occurred when Moscow suddenly invoked the clause in the 1948 Finnish-Soviet treaty that entitled the Kremlin to call for mutual discussions between the Finnish and Soviet militaries and was perceived as a threat to Finnish independence. Thinking this might presage a Soviet invasion of Finland, a distressed Kekkonen was able to resolve the crisis by flying to Siberia to meet with his erstwhile friend Nikita Khrushchev—who may well have precipitated the crisis in order to insure Kekkonen’s reelection.
Out now from Cornell University Press, The Finnish Front Line centers an overlooked chapter of the Cold War as well as a revealing if forgotten chapter of the presidency of John Kennedy and his secret offer to help Kekkonen, which the latter rejected, ultimately to avoid making Finland into next front of the Cold War.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Gordon F. Sander is a native New Yorker who graduated from Cornell University with a B.A. in history in 1973. His career as a foreign correspondent began in 1976 with a profile of the Netherlands in The New York Times Magazine, after which he became a regular contributor to both the paper’s Styles and Education sections. His byline has since appeared in over 60 leading American, British and European newspapers, magazines and news sites, including Financial Times, The New York Review of Books, Rolling Stone, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Wilson Quarterly, Daily Telegraph, Politico and The Christian Science Monitor. He additionally writes for the Washington Post, where he recently wrote an essay on the history of United States-Greenland relations. He is the author of 10 books, including Serling: The Rise and Twilight of Television’s Last Angry Man (1992); The Frank Family That Survived ( 2004); The Hundred Day Winter War, history of the 1939-40 Soviet-Finnish Winter War (2010); Off the Map: A Personal History of Finland (2012); Comeback Coach (2017), and Rooms: The Works and Life of JJ Manford. His newest book, Finnish Front Line: Kekkonen, Kennedy, Khrushchev and the Cold War, was published in December 2025 by Cornell University Press. He was artist in residence at his alma mater, Cornell University from 2002 to 2004. Sander is also an active photographer and photojournalist. In 2017 President Sauli Niinisto of Finland awarded him The Order of the Lion for his contributions to literature and the arts. He is currently based in Riga, Latvia.
Ambassador Jarmo Sareva is the Consul General of Finland in New York since September 1, 2022. Prior to his appointment in New York, Mr. Sareva served in Helsinki as Finland’s Ambassador for Cyber Affairs from 2021 to 2022 and Finland’s first Ambassador for Innovation from 2018 to 2021. From 2006 to 2018, he served in various positions at the UN in New York and Geneva, including as Director of the Geneva Branch of the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs and Director of the UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR). Mr. Sareva’s previous diplomatic experience includes serving as Director for Arms Control, Disarmament and Non-Proliferation in Helsinki and as Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative of Finland to the UN in New York, as well as postings in Moscow, Washington, D.C., and Vienna. Mr. Sareva is passionate about helping Finnish businesses expand to the U.S. market, promoting Finnish culture, and strengthening Finland’s country brand in the United States. Mr. Sareva holds an M.A. from the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University in Washington. He is married with two children and two grandchildren.