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It's a Small Country -- Will IKEA Furnish It?.
NEW YORK -- Ingvar Kamprad, founder of the IKEA furniture chain, issued a letter to his 25,000 employees two weeks ago acknowledging his past involvement with Sweden's pro-Nazi party. The letter, entitled "The Greatest Mistake of My Life," was the 68-year-old billionaire's response to a story in the Stockholm newspaper Expressen detailing his ties to the New Swedish Movement, a pro-Nazi group, and its leader, Per Engdahl, one of Sweden's most notorious post-World War II fascists, who died in May and with whom Mr. Kamprad continued an association into the 1950s.
Special Appeal
The disclosures about Mr. Kamprad received scant attention in the American press. IKEA holds a special appeal for young urbanites and professionals. The success of the international chain of pre-fab furniture stores, which raked in $1.1 billion in sales in 1993, stems as much from the demand for its household goods as for its political correctness. IKEA is renowned for its green environmental policies and its familial corporate environment. It has also received acclaim for advertising campaigns that cater to Yuppies of all persuasions, including daring ads designed to appeal to a gay market.
Boycott Question
After Mr. Kamprad's statement, it seemed that a storm had been averted. The image of the company, with its cheerful logo and progressive stances, seemed safe. Still, some Swedish and Jewish leaders remain troubled by the disclosures about the past of one of Sweden's richest men. A former deputy prime minister of Sweden, Per Ahlmark, has questioned Mr. Kamprad's present corporate conduct -- specifically whether IKEA complied with the Arab boycott of Israel.
On the wall of IKEA's flagship store in Elizabeth, N.J., where a map of the world demarcates each of the 24 countries in which IKEA has a presence, small flags denote a presence in cities as diverse as Kuwait City, Jeddah, Riyadh and Dubai. There are no such flags in Israel. An IKEA spokesman denies any official compliance with the Arab boycott.
"Right now, the initial statement by Kamprad raises many more questions than it lays to rest," says Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, "We...