Swede Says U.S. Tried to Block Telecast on Palme

Two U.S. diplomats tried to persuade national Swedish television not to run a Soviet documentary that claims Prime Minister Olof Palme’s slaying was plotted by the CIA, a television executive told Swedish radio today.

Olle Berglund, director of Sweden’s Channel One television station, said the diplomats came to him Thursday and tried to pressure him not to broadcast the Soviet documentary “Who Killed Olof Palme?”.

The 50-minute film, shown recently on Soviet television, contends that the Feb. 28 assassination was ordered by the United States.

The two diplomats were identified by the daily Svenska Dagbladet as U.S. Embassy press spokesmen John Thomson and Paul Panaccione.

The newspaper quoted a U.S. Embassy statement as saying Thomson and Panaccione had expressed “concern over this film which makes the absurd accusation that the American government would be involved in the assassination in any way.”

The embassy statement went on to say, however, “We deny having asked that Swedish television refrain from showing the film.”

Berglund said the visit by the American diplomats “was to me an absolutely unique event. It has never before happened to me that a representative of a Western nation would exercise pressure before a scheduled broadcast.”

Berglund said the Soviet documentary will be shown as scheduled on Feb. 27, the night before the anniversary of the slaying.

Police have not found the assassin.

Berglund said there was nothing controversial about the film, “which contains views that have been expressed before in Swedish press and in the Swedish Parliament.”