01x02 - Episode 2

[bunniefuu]

The Prime Minister of Sweden, Mr
Olof Palme, has been assassinated.

I'm not a detective
or a journalist.

But the police,
they're not doing anything.

So someone else has to, because
it's still an unsolved m*rder.

These boxes are the ones
that actually changed everything.

The archive of Stieg Larsson.

Sweden's most famous crime novelist

has spent ten years
trying to solve the m*rder

of our prime minister.

The police did not talk
to all the witnesses.

There were witnesses
that saw men with walkie-talkies

in the night of the m*rder.

There were a number of tip-offs
to the police

that came before the m*rder.

Ivan Von Birchan,
a mercenary from Yugoslavia.

I knew I had to pull at the threads
that Stieg Larsson left behind.

Yes. Hello. My name is Jan Stocklassa.

Am I talking to Ivan Von Birchan?

This is the m*rder weapon
we are looking for.

It's a revolver Smith Wesson .357.

I don't know what to believe, really.

Ivan Von Birchan,
in the month before the m*rder,

said that he called the police

and said
that he had been offered money

by a person that he thought
was working for the CIA

to sh**t Olof Palme.

Stieg actually did
research on Ivan Von Birchan.

It's pretty obvious
that the police didn't trust

what Ivan Von Birchan was saying.

But it's also clear that Stieg
Larsson was much more open-minded.

He wanted to explore
any possible US motive

or links
to its intelligence services.

Classified CIA document.
This is pretty amazing, actually.

I genuinely have no idea
where he got that from.

It's a 19-page report

that describes historical
assassination and examples.

The CIA actually instructed
how they should assassinate people.

In lost assassination,

an assassination where the assassin
himself is sacrificial,

he can get caught himself
or die in the process.

The assassin must be
a fanatic of some sort.

Politics, religion and revenge
are the only feasible motives.

If a p*stol is used, it should be
as powerful as possible

and fired from just beyond reach.

The .357 Magnum
is an efficient calibre.

That's exactly the calibre
that was used

when Olof Palme was k*lled.

Stieg had a huge amount
of research on the CIA.

They were funding
organisations overseas

that were working against
left-wing governments.

They were financing
anti-communist guerrillas.

Stieg was looking
at secret American operations

on foreign soil.

But the big question was,

would they have really
been active within Sweden?

Deep down in Stieg's boxes,
there's another folder

that says Stay Behind.

Stay Behind is a movement or
an organisation that doesn't exist

and still exists,

a secret organisation
that's active inside Sweden.

It's sort of
a paramilitary organisation

founded by the CIA that should
be passive in peacetime

and be activated in wartime.

When it's activated,
it can fight against the enemy,

even if the country is occupied.

Stieg was actually
researching this

much before anybody knew about it.

They had access to g*ns, expl*sives,

and they were also
trained in combat and sabotage

and stuff like that,

things that would be effective
against the enemy.

An American secret
resistance movement inside Sweden.

It sounded almost
too strange to be true.

Without a shadow of a doubt,
Stay Behind was absolutely real

because my father
set up the Stay Behind network.

These are photographs
from our family collection.

Winter time.

My brother, my sister, myself,
my mother looking very chic.

My father probably on a little
picnic outskirts of Stockholm,

pretending to be on some little...

expedition to get cakes
or something,

because he probably was
delivering something.

Taking a risk, actually, riding
with his children and his wife. Hm.

Makes for a better cover, though.
Totally better.

We sometimes wonder,
was our whole life a cover?

My name is Carl Colby.

I'm the son of William Colby,
who was the former head of the CIA.

When he reported at CIA
headquarters in 1950,

my father brought
a certain amount of gravitas.

His w*r record was stellar, and he
gravitated almost effortlessly

into the paramilitary
operational crowd.

Then they moved to Stockholm.

Part of my father's mission
was to set up Stay Behind networks,

make sure they're functioning, and
it takes a bit of skill to do that.

His cover as first
political secretary was perfect,

and with his lovely brunette wife,
three of us children,

props in a way. You know,
we're a nice little family.

Yeah, we would go off
on a car trip,

but sometimes my father
would meet somebody

and then my father would hand them something.

And we didn't ask him
what he's doing

and we weren't introduced to him.

So there was
this subterfuge going on.

If my father had any theme in his
life: things are not what they seem.

Stay Behind network was
operating throughout the world.

The setting that up
was done in tandem

with a very aggressive attitude
on the part of the Americans

with several of the top CIA
operational people.

Americans were terrified
that countries like Sweden

would just be occupied by the
Soviets, Communists or sympathisers.

Stay Behind networks were made up of

mostly people who had
had experience in the underground.

Small groups of people
operating in secrecy.

There was a great deal of interest
in taking guerrilla action.

Swedes, who were very
disciplined, very well trained.

I heard that there was
some practising going on

the night that
the Prime Minister was k*lled.

Well, that seems like it
could be more than coincidence.

This was against everything
I knew about Sweden before.

Sweden is supposed to be neutral.
We're supposed to be non-aligned.

And suddenly we have a superpower

that has created a secret resistance
movement inside Sweden.

Stieg thought that the Stay Behind
attracted a special type of people,

people that were actually
quite extreme in their views.

People who would definitely
hate Olof Palme,

who thought
he was far too left wing,

that he was too weak on communism
and that he was ruining Sweden.

And within the files
there are signed witness statements

that say that known
Swedish Stay Behind members

were spotted
in the area that same night

before and after
Olof Palme was k*lled.

It's close to incredible
that the CIA

would even care about Olof Palme

but the US start to see him
as a real problem.

It's something that
started during the Vietnam w*r.

15 years ago, North Vietnam,

with the logistical support
of communist China

and the Soviet Union,
launched a campaign

to impose a communist government
on South Vietnam

by instigating
and supporting a revolution.

The United States
furnished most of the money,

most of the arms
and most of the men

to help those countries
defend their freedom

against communist aggression.

Olof Palme was really loud
and critical of the Vietnam w*r.

Many in the US started to feel
that Olof Palme was anti-American.

In a sense equating the American
bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong

with n*zi atrocities.

Do you think in looking back
on that statement

that perhaps it went too far?

No, I think in the sense I said it
it was correct

because what I was comparing
weren't systems or regimes.

They were symbols of violence.

I thought of the suffering
people in these circumstances.

So from Stieg's files, I could see
that Olof Palme's stance on Vietnam

had really started to anger the US.

He had even marched against the w*r

together with the North Vietnamese ambassador.

Palme was the only
prime minister in the world

who managed to actually
upset the US to the extent

that they called back
their ambassador twice from Sweden.

From reading Stieg's files,
I could see what started in Vietnam

continued throughout the Cold w*r.

The Cold w*r period was very tense.

It was about ideology
and also about, of course, weapons

and threats of mass destruction
and the fear of a nuclear w*r.

We all know the atomic b*mb
is very dangerous

and since it may be used against us,
we must get ready for it.

It would be a chess game,
if there were rules.

But the very essence of conflict
is that all the rules are abolished.

The Americans
were defending Europe

against pressure
from the Soviet army,

which had something like
40,000 armoured vehicles,

a lot of steel
waiting to roll forward.

So that is what the Cold w*r
was about.

It was a battle for control
of the world.

My name is Edward Luttwak

and I am a strategic advisor
of the US Government,

and I have been
for a very long time.

Political leaders knew
very well Sweden's importance.

If the Soviets took Sweden,
that would mean,

practically speaking, it's almost
impossible to reinforce Europe.

But there was this prime minister

who was shouting all these
anti-American things.

Palme was not helpful.

He was emotionally anti-American.

He would play footsie with Castro.

And Palme overlooked all of that

because Castro
had the supreme virtue

of being colourfully anti-America.

When Reagan came to power,
he said to the Soviet Union,

we're going to outbuild you on
intermediate-range nuclear weapons.

To be able to push
and hold back the big Soviet army.

This armament is a crucial and most
urgent problem of our time.

Even though Palme was a Western
person, he was an irritant.

Olof Palme was a thorn
in the side of the US.

Here's this prime minister
from a tiny country

in the north of the world

who suddenly starts to mix in
the large world politics.

You have the US on one side,

Soviet Union on the other side,

and Olof Palme in the middle.

So this is where it
gets pretty crazy.

Just as you get your head
around the fact

that the Americans would have
wanted him gone,

you find a trail that goes in
a completely opposite direction.

There were so many times
that I started to wonder,

what kind of world have I entered?

Within the official paperwork,
there are tip-offs

and even sworn statements
coming in from spies,

military intelligence
and even politicians,

saying there was
a deliberate attempt

to focus attention towards the USA

to hide Soviet involvement
in the assassination.

The theory about the CIA being
behind the m*rder of Olof Palme

was typical of
Soviet disinformation.

My name is Joakim Von Braun.

I worked 25 years as a covert
intelligence asset

for the Swedish security police,
the Swedish counter espionage,

and the Swedish
military intelligence.

If the Soviets were able
to influence or control Sweden,

it would be an enormous
strategic coup for them.

Sweden was a very important
part of Europe.

If you look at the map,
you would see

that the length of Sweden
constitutes about 50%

of the length of Europe.

If you are going to conquer Europe,
you really have to deal with Sweden.

My name is Svante Winqvist

and I'm a former Swedish
intelligence agent

focused on Soviet intelligence.

We took the threat of
a Soviet attack seriously.

The goal of the Soviet Union
was to spread communism

all over the world.

We knew that the Soviets
had plans to invade Sweden

sooner or later.

And then came
the submarine incursions.

A Soviet submarine
is stranded

off the southern coast of Sweden
near the country's main naval base

of Karlskrona.

The Swedish authorities
say they are almost certain

the Soviet submarine was carrying
at least one nuclear warhead.

I was involved in
the decision making

when Soviet submarines
were discovered in Swedish waters.

It's unclear when the submarine will
be handed back to the Soviet Union.

This depends on whether
the Swedish Government

is satisfied with the results

of the Swedish Navy's
investigation of the incident.

We caught them red-handed
or as we say in Swedish,

we caught them...
...with the trousers down.

The submarine continues to be
a source of embarrassment

to Russian authorities.

The Soviets said bad weather
and faulty navigational equipment

led the vessel
into Swedish territorial waters.

There were further
submarine violations in 1982,

in 1984, in 1986.

The Soviets had planned
to demolish democracy.

Prime Minister Olof Palme

was very critical
against the Soviet Union.

It was Prime Minister Palme himself

that took up
the Russian ambassador

and actually was quite,
quite harsh against him.

I knew because I heard it.
He was very, very sharp.

Sweden with all possible strength

will defend
its territorial integrity.

If the intrusions would continue,
we will get hold of the submarine

and force it up to the surface
or destroy it.

We started to cooperate clandestinely

with the United States.
So we were officially neutral,

but made the necessary things
for our own survival.

Olof was instrumental

in arranging the security
arrangement with the US.

We had this arrangement that

if we were under attack
or at risk of being attacked,

the US would immediately come.

I think the Russians got so furious
that they wanted to k*ll him.

The same night as the m*rder
takes place,

there was a bugging going on.

The bug had been planted
by the Swedes

in cooperation
probably with the CIA

in a Russian diplomat's residence.

This bugging had us a result,

a conversation
between him and his wife.

The bugging was recorded,

and on one of these tapes,

one can hear that the officer
is expressing himself

as knowing that Palme
would be m*rder*d.

And we see that as a kind of proof

that the KGB and the Russian embassy

knew about the m*rder beforehand.

Do you know what he said?
No, I can't say more about this

because now we are touching
very sensitive matters.

So you have the CIA
and the US on one side

and you have the KGB
and the Soviets on the other.

So everybody's pointing the finger
at the other guy,

saying he did it. And
the eternal question that you have,

that you have to keep in your head
all the time is, who do I trust?

Can I trust anybody?

But whatever you think,
this backdrop of East and West,

communism and capitalism,
is incredibly important.

In this era of superpowers
and polarised politics,

it's also playing out
on the streets,

far left, far right.

There were all kinds of extremists.

And on the right,
many were aligning themselves

with the American anti-communists.

And I remember the key thing
from the assassination handbook,

by the CIA, that Stieg had kept.

The assassin must be
a fanatic of some sort.

Looking at his research,
there was definitely

no shortage of extremist groups
in Sweden at that time.

And he was mapping
all of this out.

I began to wonder
if Stieg thought extremists,

local fanatics, were somehow
involved in the assassination.

"Palme-Hate."

It was a phenomenon that it was...

I would say the first time we had
a politician that was that hated.

The right-wing extremists
were there building up this hate

against Olof Palme.

He was treated as a traitor.

One of the ideas was actually
that Olof Palme

was going to Moscow in April

and there he would sell out Sweden
to the Soviet Union

and we would
become part of the Soviet Union.

So they thought
that he was a traitor.

The people that hated him,
they wanted him removed.

Some of them
wanted him peacefully removed.

Some of them wanted him dead.

And that was a phenomenon
that had been going on

almost since Palme started
his political career.

I think there's animosity
against all politicians,

but with Olof Palme
it was something different.

It became known as...
..Palme-Hate.

This is, for instance, a letter.

There is someone writing directly
to Palme

without greeting him.
Just says "Palme!

We will
get rid of you. We will sh**t you."

Then it ends, "PS You can start
counting your days."

This is a pretty typical drawing
of him with his nose.

He had a big nose,
but they exaggerated the nose

and made his eyes look evil.

And he was supposed to be
some sort of...

sent out by the Devil
to destroy Sweden.

It was late Sixties.

The hate became very strong.

I have one memory.
I was going skiing in Austria

and I had spotted some Swedes,
a Swedish family.

The kids were coming up
in the ski lift

and saw me coming down
and then they shouted very loudly:

They had no relation to my father

and didn't have a clue about politics,

but they were sort of growing up

in this kind of atmosphere where
this hate

was extraordinary.

When he first entered politics,

the political right
reacted very strongly against that.

The way that they described him,
his personality

and his physical appearance...

I mean, he was portrayed as a
traitor of the country.

And these things were sort of

nurtured in top circles in society.

And then that eventually took,
of course, much nastier turns.

It was organised. It was funded.

They were collecting money
to get rid of Olof Palme.

Stieg was working with
another journalist called Hakan.

In one of his diaries
there was a meeting

and I found a letter
Stieg had written to him.

"What I'm working on right now
is trying to map out

the organizations in this swamp
once and for all.

Trying to untangle
all the addresses, post office..."

"..boxes, phone numbers,
cross connections and all that.

At first glance, the whole field

looks like
an illogical ball of yarn..."

In 1987, I was
approached by my editors

to start looking at Palme-Hatred.

I quite quickly got a tip

from a person in Stockholm

that if you go into
right-wing extremism,

you should contact a guy.

His name was Stieg Larsson.

After talking to Stieg, the first
time in his quite humble flat

here in the suburb of Stockholm...

We sat smoking and drinking coffee
in the nights.

We both were quite young.

He had a tremendous grip

on right-wing extremism in general,

nationally and internationally,
and a knowledge of persons.

What struck me was that he was...

intelligent, intense,

but very humble as a person.

He was emotionally engaged
in the subject.

He did not like neo-Nazis.

He did not like racists.

There were hours of hours
of talking, discussing,

comparing notes.

It was all-engulfing,
but it was systematised.

It was structured.

That was the assignment:

don't hunt a m*rder*r, hunt the
origins of hatred against Palme.

All the groups,
all the connections,

between different people

and how it expressed itself

and how it was organised.

I was deep into Stieg's files.

Looking at
all these extremist groups,

I finally come to
three really important dossiers,

three names, three people,
that keep coming back

in the groups
that Stieg is investigating.

Number one, Alf Enerstrom,

described as Sweden's largest
Palme-Hater in Stieg's research.

Victor Gunnarsson,
described as a far-right crackpot.

Bertil Wedin, a member of
several of the organisations

that Stieg Larsson was mapping out.

This is when I think
Stieg's investigation

becomes really focused.

It's impossible to ignore
the extent of the research

that Stieg has put into
these three people.

There's so much detail,
so many facts,

so many things
that he was looking into.

There were press clippings,
there were travel arrangements,

there were scans of passports.

So I began to read
these detailed memos,

starting with Alf Enerstrom,
Sweden's largest Palmer-Hater.

So Alf Enerstrom
was collecting money

from influential business people

to run campaigns against Olof Palme.

His long-term partner was Gio Petre,
a well-known actress.

They were comparing Olof Palme
to Adolf Hitler,

and the only possible
punishment was death.

So if there ever was a symbol
for the Palme-Hatred, this was it.

The intensity of the threats

that they were directing
against Olof Palme,

nothing was comparable to this.

Alf Enerstrom had an alibi
for the time of the m*rder.

He had been at home
with his partner Gio Petre

and she backed that up too.

So the first person I wanted
to look for was Alf Enerstrom.

Where was he now?
Would he even speak to me,

three decades after the m*rder?

What did he know about that night?

So since 1986, I found out Enerstrom
had hit financial problems.

He had shot at a policewoman,

and his relationship
with Gio Petre had ended.

I wanted to meet with him.
I managed to track down Enerstrom

and I need to create a cover story.

I was now a newspaper journalist,
and he agreed to meet with me,

and I decided
I would record everything.

I found an office space
in Stockholm.

I put up a curtain,
put a chair in front of it,

a camera,
some recording equipment.

So we sit down,

camera's rolling,
and we start talking.

So I'm thinking,

if it's true what he's telling me,
this is really big.

Not only does he say
that he knows who did it,

but he's also saying
that there was police involvement.

Stieg has been looking into this.

There were known extremists
within the police that hated Palme.

And at this stage I'm thinking...

is this a person that I can trust?

Until this moment,

he had always maintained
that he had an alibi,

that he was at his apartment
in another part of Stockholm.

And now suddenly he's telling me
that he was on Sveavagen.

So I'm being thrown
between what are lies,

what's the truth?

Is he making this up now?

Does he really believe it himself?

It seems all to be a mix...
all to be a mix of everything.

But his alibi was backed up
by Gio Petre, his partner.

So now I needed to track her down.

So this is crucial.

We have Alf Enerstrom,
the number one Palme-Hater,

with an alibi that no longer holds,

saying that he was on Sveavagen
that night,

suggesting police involvement
in the m*rder.

I wanted to know more.

So I requested all the material
I could have from the police,

and they sent me quite a lot, actually.

And then I found something else.

And the funny part is I don't think
they wanted to send this to me.

It's a Post-it Note
from someone at SAPO,

the Swedish security police.

The whole Enerstrom line of inquiry

from the secret police side,
SAPO, is considered closed.

Despite everything that was
pointing towards Enerstrom,

they say, don't look at it.

Alf Enerstrom always denied
any involvement in the m*rder.

But from what he told me,
I believe there's much more to it.

I think he was
part of a conspiracy.

Maybe not the sh**ter,
but I think he knew those involved,

sympathised with their motives
and was there that night.

So now there are only
two dossiers left

and it was time to read
about the person

that Stieg Larsson called
the far-right crackpot.

So this is a letter from Stieg.

And you can see that Stieg
is really excited because the...

The police have brought in
Victor Gunnarsson,

"an obvious far-right crackpot.

He has a record of obsession
with the prime minister,

several times suggesting
he ought to be shot

and known to tag along to
wherever Palme went,

to public meetings and rallies."

So in the official
investigation documents,

on the night
that Olof Palme was shot,

Victor Gunnarsson
told two young girls

that in Stockholm you can be shot
in the back for your opinions.

When he's picked up by the police
and they examine his jacket,

they find gunpowder residue.

Victor Gunnarsson had been
questioned early on by the police

after various tip-offs.

At this stage in the investigation,

there is a lot
pointing towards Gunnarsson.

What he continues to write is,

"Then only hours before he would
go to a preliminary court,

Gunnarsson was released."

So now I'm wondering,
where is he now

and what secrets may he be holding?

I had worked at the Sheriff's
Department for Watauga County

since 1986, and I was
at the rank of Detective Sergeant.

It was a cold, bitter Friday
in January of 1994

and was hoping just to get some
paperwork done in the office

and have a quiet day.

But then the call came in
that a survey crew

had found a dead body
in the woods.

Everything was covered in snow.

The wind was really hard.

The snow was probably
six, eight inches deep.

About right here we could see
two adult feet

sticking up out of the snow.

It was a nude male
and he was Caucasian.

He had a g*nsh*t wound
to his left temple

and to the right side of his neck.

The fact that he was bound

indicated that he had been kidnapped
and transported to this area.

It appeared to be
perhaps an execution.

Ultimately, we were able
to get Interpol involved,

which allowed us
to positively confirm that

the man whose body we found
in the woods here on January 7th

was indeed the body
of a Swedish citizen,

Victor Gunnarsson.

This is actually Victor's apartment

as we found it
when we first entered.

He kept everything.
He... Even his junk mail.

And then his bedroom was
full of books and magazines.

This was found
in Victor Gunnarsson's apartment.

And it's Swedish for
"Who shot Olof Palme?"

The author believes that
Victor Gunnarsson was the assassin.

And each chapter
has a different reason why.

I did speak multiple times
with some Swedish investigators.

Swedish police officers.

It seems everybody in Sweden
had a different opinion

about the assassination.

There are many who believe
Victor Gunnarsson

assassinated the Prime Minister.

Victor Gunnarsson I know personally.

I have social contacts with him. Yes.

Victor Gunnarsson was k*lled
because he knew who k*lled Olof.

And it's very possible
that Victor Gunnarsson

was asked to k*ll Olof Palme.

So Victor Gunnarsson had met
this pretty weird, very brutal end

in the USA.

We know he was in the area.
So was it really just a coincidence,

another right-wing Palme-hating
fanatic was there near the scene,

or was there much more going on?

But there was one dossier remaining.

This was the real breakthrough.

This is the dossier
on Bertil Wedin,

described by Stieg as
a middleman in the assassination.

Stieg felt that he could
hold the key to the whole mystery.

I could never have imagined
where this would take me.

The b*mb contained enough expl*sives
to k*ll or cause serious injury.

We say we should forgive
and forget.

I'll never forgive them
for k*lling Olof Palme.

I'll never forget it.