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Aksel
Larsen and the CIA
It has long been rumoured that Aksel Larsen, the former long-running communist leader in Denmark, made contact with the CIA following his expulsion from the party in 1958.[1] A connection, some have claimed, continued after the establishment of the Socialist People's Party (SF), which he headed until his death in 1972. Initially these rumours were dismissed as without substance by SF members, although already in 1982 autobiography of Holger Viveke — a close ally of Larsen who had followed him out of the Communist Party (DKP) to become a leading figure in the SF — specific mention was made of such an approach by the CIA. He writes that, armed with a pistol, he was asked to be present at a clandestine meeting where a CIA agent offered Aksel Larsen unlimited financial help. The pistol was handed to Viveke by Larsen's wife, as the ex-DKP leader was fearful that the Russians might try to assassinate him. The American interest in Larsen was, according to Viveke, understandable given his extensive firsthand knowledge of the inner circles of the Soviet Union and european communist parties. Aksel Larsen refused point blank the offer of money as: 'There were thousands of Danish workers, who would help him and the new party.' (Bagbord Om - Erindringer fra et godt liv, p127). Ironically, the same Holger Viveke was unmasked in 1992 as a KGB contact,[2] although whether this predated the foundation of the SF (which he had been asked to infiltrate) or if he had joined later is an issue of dispute.
The first scholarly biography of Aksel Larsen published in 1993 includes, in addition to the meeting described by Viveke, details of a letter sent to Larsen dated 29 November 29 1958 from Radio Liberty in Germany with an offer of some form of joint co-operation. Although the radio station assured Larsen that it had no connections with Radio Free Europe and was an independent media, it was well known that Radio Liberty's transmitter was financed by the CIA. The proposition was turned down in no uncertain terms, with Larsen declaring: 'My work consists of being politically active among the Danish people and fighting for socialism in Denmark not by radio or other means engaging in political agitation among the Soviet people.' (from a letter to Radio Liberty 6 December 1958 as quoted in Aksel Larsen — en politisk biografi by Kurt Jacobsen, p557). Kurt Jacobsen is of the opinion that the clandestine meeting was one in fact connected to the offer made by Radio Liberty and that the 'CIA agent' was a representative of the radio station. This though, Jacobsen writes, was not the end of the CIA connection and he confirms the sensational press reports from 1976 'based on unnamed Danish intelligence sources' that in 1958, using a bugged public telephone box (close to both the Soviet and American embassies and suspected of being used by Soviet agents) Larsen telephoned the CIA station chief in Denmark saying he was willing to give information on Danish and international communism. Following this the CIA summoned one of their experts in european communism to formulate and put questions to Larsen at a number of secret meetings that took place just outside of Copenhagen.
The discussions centred on questions of overall strategy and tactics, alongside Larsen's personal knowledge of the situation in the Soviet Union, in eastern europe and inside the communist parties of western europe. Through his research Jacobsen dates the contacts as occurring later - between 1 May 1960 and 16 November 1960. Jacobsen argues that the decision to give information to the CIA would not have been an easy one for Larsen, for although he no longer felt duty bound to be loyal to the Soviet party leadership he still considered the USSR to be a socialist society and the USA to be the dominant imperialist power whose actions were hostile to socialism the world over. Why then did he take such a risky step? If he had been found out at the time, his political career would have been ended overnight. The idea that he did it for revenge or for money is dismissed - instead Jacobsen believes it was a straightforward 'life insurance policy' on the part of Aksel Larsen. He took the possibility seriously that he might be liquidated by the KGB (as was later discovered he had an extensive collection of international and Danish newspaper cuttings from 1959-61 on a turncoat KGB agent, in which he described his work in killing Soviet defectors in western europe). He therefore went to the CIA to tell them what he knew — this would have convinced the Russians that any assassination would have had very serious repercussions and anyway it would be like 'shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted'. Another reason for helping the CIA may have been that he wanted to demonstrate to the powers that be in the west that the SF was not a communist front organisation and that it would abide by the rules of the Danish constitution.
Thus by 1993 the question of a link between Aksel Larsen and the CIA was no longer the stuff of rumour or something based on unnamed sources but was established as factually correct (although the transcript of the recorded telephone conversation has still not been made public). Moreover, in the early 1990s the CIA agent who met up with Larsen was identified and has subsequently written a letter confirming that he acted as a direct link to high-level Agency operatives who came to Denmark especially just to meet him. He has though requested that his name be withheld until the Agency gives its permission for him to openly speak of these matters. At this stage, Larsen's association with the CIA was still believed to be relatively short-lived, and entered into in 1960 through fear and in the interests of self-preservation. However, in the first months of 2003 the issue once again become newsworthy, and became a political weapon used by the extreme rightwing in the parliament to discredit the present day left. One MP stated in no uncertain terms that Aksel Larsen had been 'a double agent'[3] (sic) working for the KGB and the CIA, and implying that the left in Denmark was innately inclined to treacherous behaviour.
Then a couple of weeks later, a document was leaked to a major Danish paper — the minutes of a meeting that took place in March 1968 in the US Embassy between Larsen, the leader of the SF, and four American officials. As far as I am aware, the minutes have not been published in their entirety but have been used as the basis for a number of articles with all-in-all five or six different short direct citations from the document in question (some of these being quotations of what Larsen is supposed to have said). The meeting was clandestine and at a time when the SF had taken a decision to end all communications with the American diplomatic personnel in protest at the Vietnam War. According to the published quotes, the meeting was not a one-off affair and is proof: 'that the co-operation [between Aksel Larsen and the CIA] had been far more intensive and protracted [than previously supposed post-1993]. Aksel Larsen maintained a regular contact right up to the end of the 1960s with CIA people in Denmark, which functioned behind the backs of the Danish authorities. There was also possibly money in the picture that could have ended up in the party coffers of the SF.' (Politiken, 9 February 2003, 'Årelang SF-kontakt med CIA' - 'SF contact with the CIA lasting years'). As to the contents of the discussions, Larsen is said to have warned of the 'syndicalists, anarchists, Maoists and Communists' seen to be behind the newly established Venstresocialisterne (Left Socialists - a split off from the SF in 1967) and of the infiltration by maoists of the SF's sister party in Norway. He explained the role of the SF in Danish politics as 'functioning as a buffer between the Social Democrats and the Communists. Without the SF the Communists would make progress and the Social Democrats would be powerless in the face of the Communist Party's expansion', and 'if there is one thing I want to achieve, it is to have prevented the spread of communism in Denmark' (the minutes as cited in Politiken, 11 February 2003, 'Baggrund: Aksel og amerikanerne' - 'Background: Aksel and the Americans'). Larsen also spoke of international relations: suggesting that all the eastern european countries were dissatisfied with the Soviet Union with the exception of the GDR, the most stalinist of the regimes and it was for this reason that Denmark should not give it diplomatic recognition. It was also his view that the Soviet Union had great need for an agreement with the USA, given their economic troubles and problems with China and that the only thing holding up matters was the war in Vietnam.
The attempted 'damage limitation' by Aksel Larsen's successor as leader of the SF, Gert Petersen — that the reported meeting was little more than the ordinary sort of encounter with 'diplomats' all political leaders in Copenhagen are involved in - appears disingenuous. That said, his rejection of the suggestion that money changed hands seems more reasonable, given the permanently perilous state of SF finances and the fact that nothing in the material so far published supports this contention. There are currently two official investigations underway focusing on internal political life in Denmark during the cold war years, both of which are expected to produce comprehensive reports in the near future.[4] Presumably the Aksel Larsen-CIA link will be further scrutinised, and it is to be hoped that if there is any evidence of American money being used to finance the 'third way' (pre-Blair) of the SF, then it will be made public.[5] Clearly Aksel Larsen's disaffection from the communist movement was of a greater intensity than had been previously thought, although some will argue that it gives further credence to the image of Larsen as a cynical political manipulator motivated above all by extending his own personal power. The episode shows that the cold war continued to distort internal political development in Denmark after 1956 — the CIA operated in the country contrary to the Danish constitution (a breach of law overlooked by successive Danish governments); while the founder and leader of the Socialist People's Party had a close secret relationship with the CIA stretching over nearly 15 years.
