Olof Palme

Olof Palme
Palme in 1984
Prime Minister of Sweden
In office 8 October 1982 – 28 February 1986
Monarch	Carl XVI Gustaf
Deputy	Ingvar Carlsson
Preceded by	Thorbjörn Fälldin
Succeeded by	Ingvar Carlsson
In office 14 October 1969 – 8 October 1976
Monarchs	Gustaf VI Adolf Carl XVI Gustaf
Preceded by	Tage Erlander
Succeeded by	Thorbjörn Fälldin
Leader of the Social Democratic Party
In office 14 October 1969 – 28 February 1986
Preceded by	Tage Erlander
Succeeded by	Ingvar Carlsson
President of the Nordic Council
In office 1 January 1979 – 31 December 1979
Preceded by	Trygve Bratteli
Succeeded by	Matthías Árni Mathiesen
Positions held in the Erlander cabinets Minister of Education In office 1 January 1968 – 14 October 1969 Prime Minister Tage Erlander Preceded by Himself (as Minister of Education and Ecclesiastical Affairs) Succeeded by Ingvar Carlsson Minister of Education and Ecclesiastical Affairs In office 29 September 1967 – 31 December 1967 Prime Minister Tage Erlander Preceded by Ragnar Edenman Succeeded by Himself (as Minister of Education) Minister of Communications (Transport) In office 25 November 1965 – 29 September 1967 Prime Minister Tage Erlander Preceded by Gösta Skoglund Succeeded by Svante Lundkvist
Personal details
Born	Sven Olof Joachim Palme (1927-01-30)30 January 1927 Stockholm, Sweden
Died	28 February 1986(1986-02-28) (aged 59) Stockholm, Sweden
Manner of death	Assassination by gunshot
Resting place	Adolf Fredrik Church
Political party	Social Democratic
Spouses	Jelena Rennerova ​ ​ (m. 1948; div. 1952)​ Lisbeth Beck-Friis ​ (m. 1956)​
Children	Joakim Mårten Mattias Järvinen Palme Mattias
Relatives	Rajani Palme Dutt (first-cousin, once removed)
Alma mater	Kenyon College (BA) Stockholm University (LLM)
Signature
Website	Olof Palme International Center
Military service
Allegiance	Sweden
Branch/service	Swedish Army
Years of service	1945–1947 (active) 1947–1977 (reserve)
Rank	Captain
Unit	Svea Artillery Regiment

Sven Olof Joachim Palme (/ˈpɑːlmə/; Swedish: [ˈûːlɔf ˈpâlːmɛ] ^ⓘ; 30 January 1927 – 28 February 1986) was a Swedish politician and statesman who served as Prime Minister of Sweden from 1969 to 1976 and 1982 to 1986. Palme led the Swedish Social Democratic Party from 1969 until his assassination in 1986.

A longtime protégé of Prime Minister Tage Erlander, he became Prime Minister of Sweden in 1969, heading a Privy Council Government. He left office after failing to form a government after the 1976 general election, which ended 40 years of unbroken rule by the Social Democratic Party. While Leader of the Opposition, he served as special mediator of the United Nations in the Iran–Iraq War, and was President of the Nordic Council in 1979. He faced a second defeat in 1979, but he returned as prime minister after electoral victories in 1982 and 1985, and served until his death.

Palme was a pivotal and polarizing^[1] figure domestically as well as in international politics from the 1960s onward. He was steadfast in his non-alignment policy towards the superpowers, accompanied by support for numerous liberation movements following decolonization including, most controversially, economic and vocal support for a number of Third World governments. He was the first Western head of government to visit Cuba after its revolution, giving a speech in Santiago praising contemporary Cuban revolutionaries.

Frequently a critic of Soviet and American foreign policy, he expressed his resistance to imperialist ambitions and authoritarian regimes, including those of Francisco Franco of Spain, Augusto Pinochet of Chile, Leonid Brezhnev of the Soviet Union, António de Oliveira Salazar of Portugal, Gustáv Husák of Czechoslovakia, and most notably John Vorster and P. W. Botha of South Africa, denouncing apartheid as a "particularly gruesome system". His 1972 condemnation of American bombings in Hanoi, comparing the bombings to a number of historical crimes including the bombing of Guernica, the massacres of Oradour-sur-glane, Babi Yar, Katyn, Lidice and Sharpeville and the extermination of Jews and other groups at Treblinka, resulted in a temporary freeze in Sweden–United States relations.

Palme's assassination on a Stockholm street on 28 February 1986 was the first murder of a national leader in Sweden since Gustav III in 1792, and had a great impact across Scandinavia.^[2] Local convict and addict Christer Pettersson was originally convicted of the murder in Stockholm District Court but was unanimously acquitted by the Svea Court of Appeal. On 10 June 2020, Swedish prosecutors held a press conference to announce that there was "reasonable evidence" that Stig Engström had killed Palme.^[3] As Engström had taken his own life in 2000, the authorities announced that the investigation into Palme's death was to be closed.^[3] The 2020 conclusion has faced widespread criticism from lawyers, police officers and journalists, decrying the evidence as only circumstantial, and – by the prosecutors' own admission – too weak to ensure a trial had the suspect been alive.^[4] The true identity of his assassin remains unknown.