Olof Palme
Sven Olof Joachim Palme (Swedish: Olof Palme; pronounced [ˈʊlɔf palˈmɛ] ( listen); 30 January 1927 – 28 February 1986) was a Swedish Social Democratic politician, statesman and prime minister. A longtime protégé of Prime Minister Tage Erlander, Palme led the Swedish Social Democratic Party SAP from 1969 until his assassination in 1986, and was a two-term Prime Minister of Sweden, heading a Privy Council Government from 1969 to 1976 and a cabinet government from 1982 until his death. Electoral defeats in 1976 and 1979 marked the end of Social Democratic hegemony in Swedish politics, which had seen 40 years of unbroken rule by the party. While leader of opposition, he parted domestic and international interests and served as special mediator of the United Nations in the Iran–Iraq War, but returned to power as Prime Minister after electoral victories in 1982 and 1985. A pivotal, renowned, and polarizing figure domestically as well as in international politics since the 1960s, Palme was steadfast in his non-alignment policy towards the superpowers, juxtaposed to support of numerous third world liberation movements following the process of decolonization including, most controversially, economic and vocal support for a number of Third World governments which were guilty of gross violations of human rights. Most famously, he was the first Western Head of Government to visit Cuba after its revolution, giving a speech in Santiago praising contemporary Cuban and Cambodian revolutionaries. Frequently a critic of US and Soviet foreign policy, he resorted to fierce and often polarizing criticism in pinpointing his resistance towards imperialist ambitions and authoritarian regimes, including those of Francisco Franco of Spain, António de Oliveira Salazar of Portugal, Gustáv Husák of Czechoslovakia, B J Vorster and P W Botha of South Africa. His 1972 condemnation of the Hanoi bombings, notably comparing the tactic to the Treblinka extermination camp, resulted in a temporary freeze in Sweden–United States relations. Palme's steadfast opposition to apartheid, which he labeled "a particularly gruesome system", gave rise to theories of South African involvement in his death, which were further fueled when Eugene de Kock claimed South African security forces had orchestrated his death. His murder by an unapprehended assailant on a street in Stockholm on 28 February 1986 was the first of its kind in modern Swedish history, the first of a national leader since Gustav III, and had a great impact across Scandinavia. Local convict and addict Christer Pettersson was convicted of the murder but was acquitted on appeal by the Svea Court of Appeal.