Sweden Pauses in Moment of Tribute to Palme

STOCKHOLM —  Trains stopped, pedestrians paused on the street and members of Parliament rose quietly as Sweden observed one minute of silence today to honor assassinated Prime Minister Olof Palme.

Thousands of mourners, many weeping, stood mute near where the 59-year-old Social Democrat was shot the night of Feb. 28.

Palme’s widow Lisbet, 55, who was slightly wounded in the attack, sat with her three grown sons in the Riksdag, or Parliament, where a string ensemble played softly before and after the one-minute tribute.

It was the family’s first public appearance since the shooting. They entered the hall just before the minute of silence, and television cameras did not show them during the minute of mourning.

Daffodils Mark Chair

Yellow daffodils marked Palme’s vacant chair among the hall’s wooden desks. His successor as party leader, Ingvar Carlsson, sat by Palme’s seat. Carlsson now heads the caretaker government.

“We are gathered here to honor Olof Palme, a great statesman, a fighter for peace, a considerate family father and good friend and comrade,” Parliament Speaker Inegemund Bengtsson said in a memorial address.

Sweden is a nation with no tradition of state mourning. Officials said that the people’s own gestures of grief were enough.

The national railroad arranged to stop at least 1,000 trains and even motorists were told they could halt their cars for the memorial gesture to Palme, described by Bengtsson as “the most brilliant politician we ever had.”

Leading European Figure

Palme was a leading voice in West Europe for peace and disarmament.

Stockholm Police Commissioner Hans Holmer said today “a thousand lights” were burning in the hunt for Palme’s killer, a reference to what Holmer described as investigators’ most promising tips. He said that following up only the most promising leads had involved 1,500 people.

Palme’s funeral will be a civic ceremony on Saturday in Stockholm’s waterside City Hall.

Secretary of State George P. Shultz will lead the American delegation, the State Department announced today. Others among the 600 foreign guests will be U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi of India and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega.