By Steppeulven.
Jens Stoltenberg, then Prime Minister of Norway, was invited as a keynote speaker at the annual Utvandrerfestivalen in Kvinesdal 2001, and it was the headline of the Stavanger Aftenblad three days before the show.
Stoltenberg, who with US backing won a post as NATO secretary general in 2014, was recently called by Seymour Hersh a committed anti-Communist, “the glove that fits the American hand”. Hersh further states that He was a hard-liner on all things Putin and Russia and had cooperated with the US intelligence community since the Vietnam War. We have trusted him ever since. Or, for those who swear by the all-Norwegian version of Gudleiv Forr, Per Egil Hegge and Olav Njølstad in the 2010 book on Jens Stoltenberg, a “a pragmatic compromise-maker without a strong ideological orientation”, and can be seen as “the third way” within modern social democracy. Wow I say.
But Stavanger Aftenblad’s interest in 2001 wasn’t for Jens, it was for the show’s star at Kvinesdal, Kris Kristofferson. The man behind Me and Bobby McGhee, the song Janis Joplin immortalized. The song that immortalized Janis, released after his death at age 27.
Kris had to come to Kvinesdal. The man who played Rubber Duck, a long-distance driver in the film Convoy. The Devil with the Silver Tongue went to Kvinesdal in his cleanest dirty shirt. To the vast majority of the crowded concert audience, Kris Kristofferson was also known as an American country singer, a country artist, a widely successful poet and composer, and an increasingly vocal critic of the imperialist United States. And for me personally he was very special, because I was one of those who booed him off the Isle of Wight stage in 1970. One of the very few acts in my life that I’ve regretted many nights when he helped me get through the night, driving a trailer on the highway.
Kvinesdal, like a number of other villages and towns in southern Norway, has a close relationship with the United States, which champions an immigrant festival. Most of us here have a great-grandfather, a grandfather, an uncle, a father or a whole branch of the family who emigrated in the 18th or early 19th century, or who won money as a parquet installer in the 1950s and 1960s. Or just been on a trip over there. Many returned or visited the old country at regular intervals. And took everything from language and culture to refrigerators, furniture, cars and even entire homes. Vansebygda outside of Farsund is perhaps the most Americanized. Here you can cruise along Route 8, shop at Trunken and Larsen’s Bakery, or discover 8e Avenue Diner and 8e Avenue Bar & Supperclub at Brooklyn Square 2.
It became clear early on that Kristofferson was not coming. He was filming in the Czech Republic, the filming was delayed, a lot of money and a lot of people were involved. But the St. Hans Emigrant Festival concert had received a lot of free publicity and free travel assistance in the media thanks to the invitation. Most of the top country artists from Norway were expected, along with a handful of foreigners, although Yankee Eric Andersen, and unknowns Julie Gibb from Canada and Germany’s Hank Hawkins were in Kris’s shadow.
The concert was a great experience. Lynni Treekrem, Henning Kvitnes, Ottar “Big Hand” Johansen and especially local Steven Kvinlaug impressed. Whereas Kenneth Sivertsen was the artist we remember best. So stoned he was unable to play and barely finished a coherent sentence.
But then, what really made this concert a memory for life. Stoltenberg’s celebratory speech.
Not Jens, he had also reported a delay without anyone reacting to it. But Thorvald, Father Thorvald stepped in as a substitute. An excellent choice. The former vice-consul of Norway in San Francisco, former minister of defense and foreign affairs kept the audience spellbound from the first to the last snowfall. He told the story that we Southerners know, about the journey from poverty to the land of opportunity, from poverty to work and money. About our relations with the United States, which have always been good. All with his sure, paternal and deep voice, without sharp edges against which it was necessary to react. Truly a party talk.
One objection that has been made to Seymour Hersh’s article on joint US-Norwegian war action against Germany and Russia is the claim that Jens should have has cooperated with the US intelligence community since the Vietnam War.
For Jens, he was just 16 on April 30, 1975 when Americans fled Saigon in their helicopters and the Vietnam War ended, critics say. Jens was born on March 16, 1959, the same year Thorvald became vice consul in San Francisco. Jens joined the Labor Party when he was 14. Helped re-establish the local AUF team in Majorstua at the age of 15, in an AUF which at every national meeting from 1969 adopted a non-Norwegian to NATO. There he became a member of the central council in 1979, the same year Thorvald became defense minister. Deputy Leader in 1983 and Leader in 1985 when the Conservative Party was in power. In 1987, the AUF stopped saying no to NATO for the first time, with Jens as its leader. The same year Thorvald became Foreign Secretary. In 1989 Jens resigned as leader of the AUF and Thorvald left his post as foreign minister. The AUF’s relationship with the CIA is well known. Keywords Ola Teigen. Google, as it is called today.
“We called Mondale”
Being foreign minister was easy. We had good relations and close ties with the United States. And we had a big advantage, and we took advantage of it. The United States had a vice president named Walter Mondale, and he was almost Norwegian. He came from Mundal in Sogn og Fjordane. So when we wondered about a problem, we simply called Walter Mondale and found out what we were supposed to think.
The phrase “as you say in party speeches” means that you are not necessarily saying what is true, but what you want people to believe.
When the Norwegian foreign minister had a question about something, he could call the United States because the vice president was Norwegian. There is little reason to believe that the foreign minister of the NATO country Norway, the only one with a border with Russia, had a contact problem with the United States, nor with the government , neither with the Pentagon, nor with the secret services. In the real world, Mondale served as vice president from 1977 to 1981, while Thorvald served as foreign minister from 1987 to 1989 and from 1990 to 1993. From 1979 to 1981 he served as defense minister, but here the symbolism is probably more important. Shouldn’t we let the United States decide our defense policy? However, the logic of the party talk was that the relationship was close, easy to call, because Mondale was Norwegian.
It is no secret that the relationship between father and son was also close, and that Minister Thorvald and Secretary of State and Director of Transport Karin raised their children. Could Father call the United States, could Jens call too? That Jen’s main job in the AUF was to change NATO’s position is no longer a wild claim. “The Norwegian break with NATO is our goal,” NATO opponent Jens told Aftenposten when he ran as a candidate for the AUF presidency. In his 2016 autobiography, he says, “I didn’t lie to the Aftenposten reporter, but I still couldn’t look him straight in the eye.”*
Whether Jens had a close relationship with America since the Vietnam War, as Seymour claims, is uncontroversial, though contact with the CIA is likely harder to prove with open sources.
Now Jens in 2018 tells American students he felt safe growing up in a small country close to the Soviet Union because we were a member of NATO, he learned the celebratory speech technique from Thorvald. In ABC Nyheter it is said that “NATO-Jens embellishes the history of AUF-Jens”.*
Jens overthrew AUF opposition to NATO by running for office on the opposite rostrum, and later became NATO Secretary General.
Now we’ve both heard that “the Russian attack was unprovoked” and that “We in NATO had been preparing for war for eight years.» «weapons are peaceis the last contribution.
These versions are most reminiscent of party speeches, and the version served to us obviously depends on time and place.
I got to experience Kris Kristofferson in the Oslo Concert Hall in 2016, and see and hear him inside me when the celebratory talk dies down.
DON’T LET THE BASTARDS GET YOU DOWN
Sources/ Immersion/ Entertainment
*ABC News: NATO-Jens embellishes the history of AUF-Jens
https://www.abcnyheter.no/nyheter/politikk/2018/04/06/195385770/nato-jens-pynter-pa-historian-til-auf-jens
Seymour Hersh: How America Eliminated the Nord Stream Pipeline
https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream
Kris Kristofferson on the Isle of Wight 1970
Thorvald Wiki: https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorvald_Stoltenberg
Jen Wiki: https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jens_Stoltenberg
Walter Mondale: https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Mondale
Janis Joplin. Me and Bobby McGhee. : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Cg-j0X09Ag
Kris Kristofferson.
The Devil with the Silver Tongue:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHReBUA8cH4
Sunday morning descending: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbqGWTxwZEA
Help me get through the night: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CksF7Kr7Drw
