Kenyon College - CASE

A taxi driver feverishly radioed for police; a second cabbie nearby heard
the transmission and flagged down a patrol car. Palme was rushed to a
nearby hospital.
But it was too late. Olof Palme—a much admired, much criticized leader
during a turbulent era—was pronounced dead just after midnight. He was
fifty-nine.
Palme was known for guiding neutral Sweden in a “middle way’’ during
the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. He assailed
South African apartheid, and, at the United Nation’s behest, he attempted
to mediate the Iran-Iraq war. He stridently criticized American involvement
in the Vietnam War, provoking hostility from the U.S. government and
many Americans.
He was also a Kenyon graduate, quite possibly Kenyon’s most prominent
alumnus on the world stage—a statesman formed in part by a youthful
sojourn in the United States, including a year on the Hill. He left Kenyon
with lifelong friends and an affection, for both the College and America, that
would never flag.
“Lucky to land there”
Palme arrived in Gambier from Sweden at age twenty in the autumn of 1947.
He was an unconventional student at an unconventional time in the
College’s history.
“He had wanted to go to school in the States; he never made entirely clear
why,” classmate and longtime friend Henry J. Abraham ’48 said in a recent
interview. “So he turned to his grandfather, who was a Lutheran bishop in
Sweden at the time. His grandfather said he would take care of it, but you
have to agree to one condition. You have to go to a Protestant college.”
Palme sought a scholarship through the American Scandinavian
Foundation. “Suddenly I received a letter from Kenyon,” he told the Alumni
Bulletin in a 1984 interview. “I had never heard of the College, but as it
turned out I was lucky, extremely lucky to land there.”
He entered Kenyon fluent in English, French, and German, with
extensive academic credit from studies in Sweden. He also had served as a
cavalry lieutenant.
At the time, the College was flooded with ex-military men, young American
veterans of World War II. Many of them lived in Splinterville, the nickname
for a temporary housing complex built to handle the enrollment bulge.
As a resident of the complex’s large “T barracks,” Palme met Paul Newman
’49; the two would remain friendly throughout their lives. Other friends included
William T. Bulger ’48, who went on to teach history at Central Michigan
University, as well as Abraham, who later taught political science at the University
of Pennsylvania and the University of Virginia, and served as a College trustee.
The future prime minister, who majored in economics and political
science, was a straight-A student. But he found time for soccer, which had
just emerged as a varsity sport. Palme wore number 32; Abraham, the team
captain, wore number 37.
Palme worked as a dining hall waiter, said Abraham, who had the same
job. “He received, as we all did, 47 cents per meal and all we could eat. We
put up a sign [reminding the waiters] to wear neckties. And one day he came
in with a necktie and no shirt on. When we took him to task, he pointed to
the sign and said, ‘All you said was wear a necktie.’ ”
Palme spent Christmas of 1947 at the Bulger family home in Flint,
Michigan, and later would reminisce about banging on pans with the Bulgers
to welcome the New Year.
Meanwhile, he honed his progressive social views by visiting an industrial
plant in nearby Mount Vernon. “He spent every weekend exploring the union
standing in the center, wearing number 32, palme played on Kenyon’s first
varsity soccer team in 1947. The captain, number 37, was Henry J. “Hank”
Abraham ’48, who remained a friend.
movement,” Abraham said. “He would go to the plant and talk with people.”
The explorations widened. After graduating in 1948—extensive academic
credit from Sweden enabled Palme to finish up at Kenyon in just a year—he
hitchhiked through thirty-four states, taking odd jobs when he could.
His American experiences proved to be important. “For the first time, I
came out of isolated Sweden,” he said in a 1971 interview. The cross-country
trip gave him “a good picture of American society. It gave me strong feelings
about social injustices.”
Minister on the rise
Back in Sweden, Palme obtained a law degree and eventually took a job
in the prime minister’s office. In 1957 he was first elected to the Swedish
parliament as a member of the dominant Social Democratic party, the leftleaning
architect of the country’s famous social-welfare system. He joined the
government’s cabinet in 1963 as minister without portfolio. His first official
duty—grimly ironic in retrospect—was to attend the funeral of the assassinated
President John F. Kennedy.
Sweden maintained a neutral stance in foreign policy, attempting to walk
a narrow line between the two Cold War behemoths. Neutrality shouldn’t
mean aloofness, though, in Palme’s view. He joined in a demonstration when
the Soviet Union sent troops into Czechoslovakia in 1968 to repress liberalization.
But it was his criticism of America’s role in Vietnam that brought
him the most publicity.
During the late 1960s, Sweden accepted U.S. military deserters. The country
also had given a modest amount of financial assistance to North Vietnam.
In 1968, when he was minister of education, Palme participated with a North
Vietnamese diplomat in a protest against American involvement in Vietnam.
“The American ambassador (a ranch-owner from Texas) became angry and
went home and we had a magnificent internal row here in Sweden,” Palme wrote
to Bulger. “The opposition demanded that I resign immediately. But I stayed.”
In another letter, Palme told Bulger, “I am deeply worried, disgusted