Kekkonen, Urho Kaleva (1900–1986)

Finnish politician, prime minister of Finland four times in the early 1950s and president 1956–81. An advocate of détente, he was the prime mover behind the Helsinki Conference on European security (1975), an important superpower summit.

Kekkonen gained ministerial office as a representative of the Agrarian Party in the 1930s and 1940s. As president, he adopted a policy of cautious friendship with the USSR. He was due to remain in office until 1984, but ill-health forced him to resign the presidency in 1981.