ABSTRACT
In January 1943 US Secretary of State Cordell Hull alerted the Swedish government to its obligations as a neutral and intimated a threat of American reprisal if they were not observed. He explained that ‘the determining factor in American-Swedish relations during the war must be the extent of Sweden’s resistance to Axis demands that were contrary to her rights as a neutral state and a democratic independent nation’.2 Hull later noted in his memoirs that just over eighteen months later the substance of communications with Sweden was rather different: ‘After numerous exchanges of views with the British Government, including messages between the President and the Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary Eden and I agreed on joint representations to the Swedish Government, made on August 24, stating that nothing short of cessation of all trade relations with the Axis and of a radical change in Sweden’s German policy would meet our demands.’3 Those demands were backed with substantive threats if Sweden did not comply. After threatening Sweden with retaliation for not upholding her neutral rights in 1943, the USA in 1944 threatened her with retaliation if she did not abrogate those very same rights.
