Written by Jan Gillberg
“I’ll be damned! In other words, it was true!”, writes Jan Guillou, almost 10 years later after he – when it all happened – for a paltry 4 000 Swedish Crowns, let himself be drawn into the task, led by Ebbe Carlsson and Hans Holmér, of disinformation and keeping the matter secret from the public. “If I had spoken, we would have seen the downfall of the Government and many others in Parliament who would have to resign”, explains Gulli – one of the prostitutes in Doris Hopp’s team. And Inspector Karl-Hugo Jansson of SÄPO, the Security Police, can today testify “Sweden would have collapsed like a pack of cards if the truth had emerged.”
What this is all about is the so-called “Brothel Mix-up”, which rather inappropriately is dated to 1976. It was then it became apparent, but the mix-up covers much more in time – both backwards and even more forwards. Strictly speaking, it has not yet come to an end. Not even with the book published this autumn “Makten, Männen, Mörkläggningen” (Vertigo) by Deanne Rauscher and the late Janne Mattsson.
Men have and always have had mistresses as women have had lovers. And in many countries there are whorehouses – often in secluded town areas, such as ports – to go to. In Sweden it is the “street” that applies. The street most known – which may seem ironic – is Regeringsgatan (Government Road) in the Royal Capital.
The Party-SÄPO/Police-Media Formed a Black out Alliance
When it became clear that the journalist Peter Bratt, in the late autumn of 1977, was about to reveal how The Minister of Justice (Lennart Geijer) a good year beforehand, had been pointed out as a security risk in a presented Memo by the National Police Commissioner (Carl Persson) to the Prime Minister (Olof Palme), violent activity broke out. In this activity, partook the former Home Secretary’s own former press secretary and henchman (Ebbe Carlsson), the former head of the security police and at that time head of the Stockholm Police (Hans Holmér) and a row of journalists with the Chief Editor (Gunnar Fredriksson) for the Swedish Labour and Trade Union Movement with the newspaper Aftonbladet in the lead. But that is not all. Even the resigned Prime minister, as a result of the 1977 election and at this time leader of the opposition, Olof Palme, played a most active part. Suddenly over night – an alliance of the Party-Säpo/The police-Media was formed with just one purpose: to put the lid on.
What made the black out manoeuvres far more serious than it would seem, are mainly two things:
• Firstly, it had been stated that there was something more serious than this, that the country’s Home Secretary had sex with prostitutes and even with those under age. In connection with the panic that broke out, when it was clear that on November 18 1977 information was to be published from a, till then, secret police memo concerning the Brothel Mix-up, the writer of the memo – the national police commissioner, Carl Persson, expressed worry that one would also “find something worse than Geijer”. What could that be? What could be ”worse” than a disclosure that the Home Secretary had sex with prostitutes?
• Secondly, it is quite clear that several of Doris Hopp’s “girls” were Polish, who through the Polish Embassy, had connections to the Polish spy organisation Z2. There is a lot that indicates that even other Eastern European Embassies operated in the same way to find customers amongst key figures within the Swedish society.
The light-footed from the East In secret war with Sweden
Put two and two together and it will lead to the question: Was Sweden during those years exposed to an extensive operation, with the help of lovely ladies from the East – together with Swedish colleagues and through a Swedish call-girl organisation-to get a hold on people in the absolute top positions of society? Was this in turn part of a strategy, aimed at preparing the ground for a “soft” (with out cannons and tanks) incorporation of Sweden in the Soviet Communistic sphere?
In fact, there is a book that pursues this theme. When it was published in 1991, Jörgen Widsell presented it in the magazine “Z” as “the book sensation of the year”. For a short time, it was often seen in the bookshops. But then both the book and the publishers suddenly disappeared. Even the editions that had not been sold disappeared. Before this it was reviewed with headlines such as:
• “Sensational Book: the light-footed from KGB in secret war”
• “Sensational Book on Secret War”
• “Soviet KGB’s Light-footed in Secret War With Sweden”
• “Lovely Lady Makes a KGB Carrier”
The book – a novel- has the title “Vita Mord” (White Murders) and is written by pseudonym Veritas Konradsen. The main character is a KGB major Olga, who leads an organisation with just “lovely ladies”. Their task is to attract and in this way trap key figures within the Swedish society and literally get to know them intimately. Some die suddenly and without explanation. They are poisoned – explaining the title “Vita Mord”.
The team of lovely ladies led by Olga goes a step further than the instructions for the girls in Doris Hopp’s team. Did the “secret war” have different strategies depending on the material they were attacking?
What did the blackout protect?
What was it that Ebbe Carlsson, Hans Holmér & Co by their blackout and disinformation campaign protected? What did they know about the game, the labyrinth and utmost goal that they were engaged in? How much did they understand?
Part of the answer is now clear. What one protected was an activity that would not have gained through being revealed to the public and in which a brotherhood crossing Party boundaries was enticed into. That was what one protected. And for that exercise, a long row of Sweden’s most renowned journalists made themselves available!
What was ”worse” than Geijer?
What was it that the National Police commissioner Carl Persson meant was worse than Geijer?
Can it be anything other than that even the Prime Minister, Olof Palme, was involved in the mix-up? If so, much of Palme’s reaction would be explained – amongst other things how he, in a parliamentary debate, denied receiving a police memo in which the Home Secretary, through his contacts with prostitutes, was pointed out as a security risk and with sweeping words dismissed the whole thing as malicious gossip.
The Brothel Mix-up and The “Viggen” Crashes
When the Brothel Mix-up had got attention, it had been focused on the Home Secretary and certain other leading politicians. However, the customer list covered names of people with central positions from both the military authorities and the administration of justice.
One of the most interesting names concerns a director from the Defence Equipment Department. The man was an aircraft engineer and a specialist on the fighter plane J37 Viggen. One of his assignments was to try and find the cause of the many crashes that “Viggen” was subject to, between the years 1971- 82. All in all there were 26 crashes at which about 10 pilots were killed. Many of the crashes were hard to explain. The air force was also “closed down” for long periods of time. All the “Viggen” planes were quite simply grounded. Sabotage was a speculation.
The idea behind one speculation was that a number of TIR cars from Eastern Europe and which caused bewilderment by travelling along secluded Swedish, forest roads, should have been carrying equipment for burial and the installation of laser cannons positioned so that with some kind of automatic remote control could shoot down fighter bombers soon after take off.
This may sound like science fiction, but it must be remembered that this was a time when Polish picture sellers were put in to map out where the Swedish fighter pilots lived in order to make it possible to strike at their homes at dusk.
At the same time it so happened that the director in the defence force who had the administration responsibility – he had seven section heads below him – in order to investigate the cause of the crashes, practised amour with ladies from a call- girl organisation, which, in its team, had a number of Poles attached to the Polish spy organisation Z2. It should also be noted that the director in question, after his pension in 1975, at the age of 61, continued on a consult basis (in all likelihood “under a freer form”) to investigate the “Viggen” crashes.
Another customer was a Wing Commander in the highest protective class with the responsibility for the safety of the Royal Family in connection with State visits.
Add to this a later statement by Olof Frånstedt – operative leader for the Swedish Intelligence – concerning just the Brothel Mix-up’s connection to Z2 and other “simultaneous” Eastern European organisations.
“And there were several more women involved that we did not know about. We only saw the surface and perhaps only the unimportant part of the surface.”
The Brothel Mix-up and The “Legal” Blackout
The most serious and distressing about the blackout of the Brothel Mix-up is how the entire legal system was eliminated.
• The Chief Investigator of the Stockholm Police, Kurt Nyblom, was given orders from The Ministry of Justice to lie low in the Brothel Mix-up.
• Hans Holmér (at that time still chief of SÄPO) instructed the Chief Investigator Morgan Svensson to not make a note of the customers, who had been listed through the telephone tapping of the police.
• The Chief Prosecutor Eric Östberg gave instructions that the greatest possible consideration should be taken for the anonymity of the customers and that in the preliminary investigation only the names of the prostitutes should be noted. Furthermore, acquired statements should only be accounted for briefly. Östberg himself was pointed out to be one of the customers.
• Nevertheless, when the affair in the autumn of 1977 was about to explode, Ebbe Carlsson – consequently the Home Secretary’s special emissary – was with Kurt Nyblom explaining: “By the way, the commission you began this morning, it’s of no importance, don’t bother about it”.
• Karl Hugo Jansson, Inspector at Säpo, sums it up: “One tried to get round this in all possible ways without all hell breaking loose”.
• And the memos handed over by the National Police Commissioner Carl Persson, to the country’s Prime Minister Olof Palme, he never registered.
The Brothel Mix-up and The One-Party State
The Brothel Mix-up was encased by a whole pack of lies. No one today can deny this. Of all these lies the greatest was that lies were said “for the best of things”. This is what is written in Deanne Rauscher’s and the late Janne Mattson’s book:
”There were several names of renowned politicians in Doris Hopp’s own notes and this supported the stories of the girls in Hopp’s team when they were heard by the police. When we inform Ingvar Gullnäs of this, he says, “It does not surprise me one little bit as they (the police and politicians) lie half the time. Those in power, who Gullnäs interrogated, could lie to him straight in his face and at the same time admit that they lied ’for the best of things’ .”
“For the best of things”!?! That depends on what one means by “things”. The lying had an overriding purpose:
To protect the built up power structure around the Party and its adaptable, submissive actors and assistants. To protect that which was and is inherited under the schizophrenic aegis of Olof Palme and his Minister of Justice.
It was NOT about what was best for the country: Not even for each nation’s fundamental security and survival could these years hold their own against so much lying. In Rauscher’s - Matsson’s book this was expressed as follows:
“In the madam’s team there were women who had close contact with officials from the Polish Embassy, who, in their turn, worked for the Polish spy organisation Z2. What would happen if these people put pressure on Swedish Ministers, security classed high-ranking officers and leaders within trade and industry who made use of the madam’s prostitutes?”
This actually means that the key figures in the Swedish defence force, which let themselves be “attended to” by the Poles and other ladies sent by the East block, could benefit from the legal organisation being put out of the running to prevent the discovery of that several members of the government let themselves be drawn into the mix-up. It was not only about the Minister of Justice. This also means that knowledge is limited as to what extent the defence force had become involved in brief encounters with lovely ladies from the East. It was obviously of no priority for SÄPO chief Hans Holmér and his colleague Ebbe Carlsson to make this clear.
No, the important thing was the Party and the increased power structure surrounding it. And this structure has not in the least, with the strength of the lies, which won so many astounding victories in connection with the Brothel Mix-up, been able to develop further to the point that Sweden has come to de facto count as a ONE-PARTY STATE, where the opposition parties, financed by the state have very much come to resemble chained satellites.
There could have been another aim
This is how it became. There could have been another aim. It could have been a way to a new kind of war: a war to morally weaken the leadership within strategic significant sectors of society and at the same time use blackmail on the Swedish government.
On January 21 1986, DN Debatt published a whole page article by Commander Hans von Hofsten with the title “Soviet Republic Sweden?” How would the Swedes have reacted if the Brothel Mix-up had been able to – with megaphone support from outside – explode with all its strength? What possibilities would have been created for “far reaching political changes” directed from the Kremlin and executed on the spot by the Kremlin’s Swedish brother party?
There is certainly more knowledge about this in security organisations around the world than in the country where all manner of entangled loyalties meant that nobody wanted to know.
ONE-PARTY STATE and Public Moral
There became no Soviet Republic Sweden. There was never the right “situation” and then time for Soviet Communism ran out. But it became One-Party State Sweden. Above all, a public moral has developed with strong bonds to lying, which became an established culture as a secondary effect of the Brothel Mix-up. In a longer perspective this can be seen as the most serious after birth of the mix-up.
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