Harvard Holds Palme Memorial

Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was described as a "symbol of decency in human affairs" by mourners who gathered at a memorial service at Harvard's Memorial Church on Saturday.

About 300 people, many from the Harvard community and consular corps, gathered for the service in memory of the 59-year-old Social Democrat who was shot and killed February 28 by an unidentified gunman.

Sissela Bok, a Swedish-born ethicist whose parents Gunnar and Alva Myrdal were Swedish Nobel Prize-winners, said she believed people were most impressed by Palme's "sense of utter self-evidence with which he dedicated himself to public service."

She called him an "internationalist statesman in the best sense of the word, one of the still quite rare leaders who understands the intimate connection between the welfare and survival of his own nation and that of all others."