Night Frost Crisis

This article is about the political event. For the novel by R. D. Wingfield, see Night Frost.
Urho Kekkonen (seated, centre-left) with Nikita Khrushchev (seated, centre-right), celebrating Kekkonen's 60th birthday in 1960.

The Night Frost Crisis (Finnish: yöpakkaskriisi) or the Night Frost (Finnish: yöpakkaset,[1] Swedish: nattfrosten) was a political crisis that occurred in Soviet–Finnish relations in the autumn of 1958. It arose from Soviet dissatisfaction with Finnish domestic policy and in particular with the composition of the third government to be formed under Prime Minister Karl-August Fagerholm. As a result of the crisis, the Soviet Union withdrew its ambassador from Helsinki and put pressure on the Finnish government to resign. The crisis was given its name by Nikita Khrushchev, who declared that relations between the countries had become subject to a "night frost".

  1. ^ "Neuvostoliiton salaisia papereita julki – sisältävät uutta aineistoa myös Kekkosen idän-suhteista - Aamulehti". Aamulehti (in Finnish). 2017-10-18. Retrieved 2018-02-19.