American prisoners-of-war home from North Vietnam in September 1972. Though the group
was small, their release was significant at a time when formal Paris peace talks were stalled.
The prisoners were released to the Committee of Liaison with Families of Servicemen
detained in Vietnam, an antiwar group. Swedish assistance to the Committee of Liaison
ensured that newly freed prisoners could travel back to the United States outside of U.S.
military custody, even freely expressing their views on the war at a press conference at the
Copenhagen airport.
Although most of the POWs would not return home until the Paris Peace Accords in 1973, Stockholm helped to confirm the imprisonment of servicemen whose families did not know whether they were alive or dead. For Sweden, it was a paradoxical success, as Stockholm sought to balance its relationship with the Nixon administration while pursuing a humanitarian effort and supporting the American antiwar movement. After meeting with the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Palme had realized that alleviating the suffering of the POW families could help turn the American people more firmly against the war. “From the discussions I got a strong impression of the importance to public opinion in your country of the issue of
missing American servicemen,” Palme wrote afterward to the committee chairman, Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas. At the time, the Nixon administration had used the captivity of the POWs to justify the continuation of the war. Palme’s strong antiwar stand earned the lasting rancor of the Nixon White House, leading to a diplomatic break between the two nations from December
1972 until the spring of 1974.