The UN’s first symposium on developing the utilisation of oil shale resources was held in Tallinn on 28 August – 4 September 1968, only a week after Soviet armed forces were sent into the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (which took place on 21 August). This was also the first international conference to be held in Tallinn after 1939 that included participants from Western countries as well. The aim of the symposium was to encourage the adoption of oil shale resources for utilisation in developing countries. Henning von Wistinghausen’s report describes the Soviet Union’s ambitions to increase its influence in developing countries by way of the field of oil shale. This ambition became evident to him at the symposium. He also characterises the political atmosphere and general conditions in Estonia at the end of the 1960s. The scientific-technical part of the report relies on the summary of the symposium drawn up by another German delegate, Hans Kroepelin, the director of the Chemistry Technology Institute at the Braunschweig Institute of Technology.

Twenty nine countries were represented in Tallinn with a total of 266 participants. Of this group, 221 participants were from the Soviet Union, most of whom in turn were Estonian scientists, engineers and captains of industry. Eleven scientists represented the USA, while each of the remaining countries sent 1–3 representatives (Brazil, Bolivia, Bulgaria, Burma, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, France, Jordan, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, New Zealand, Pakistan, Panama, Romania, Somalia, Spain, Sweden, Syria, Thailand, Turkey, the United Arab Republic, England, Yugoslavia and the German Federal Republic). In the strained political situation resulting from the recent events in Czechoslovakia, the delegates of several Western countries declined to participate. A few isolated American scientists followed the advice of the US government to boycott the event. The German government considered it necessary for a representative of Germany’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to participate in order to curb the influence of representatives from the German Democratic Republic, but no East German delegates ended up coming to the symposium. The symposium’s working sessions were held at the Tallinn Polytechnical Institute (currently the Tallinn University of Technology). A total of 89 presentations were given. At the final session, decisions were adopted that had to be taken into consideration in the future within the framework of the UN technical aid programme aimed at developing countries. The visitors were shown an oil shale mine, the Narva electric power plant, and the Kohtla-Järve oil shale integrated refining plant on field trips to Eastern Viru County. According to Hans Kroepelin, Estonia’s oil shale industry and scientific research were at as high a level as Soviet technical and economic conditions permitted. According to Wistinghausen’s impression, the introduction of these enterprises to foreigners appeared to present the leaderships of these enterprises with difficulties since, for instance, only vague information was permitted to be presented concerning the technical aspects that especially interested the Americans.

The symposium was reported daily on Estonian Television, which broadcast interviews with foreign delegates, among other things. Estonia had also prepared a cultural and social programme for its foreign guests: a concert by Estonian musicians, visits to a poultry farm and a collective fishing enterprise, a sauna evening, a boat trip in the Bay of Tallinn, a picnic on a beach near the city with performances by an Estonian folk dancing troupe and Estonian choirs, a visit to the opera, and other such events. It was found that the programme far surpassed the level of comparable conferences. The conversations between Estonians and foreigners often ranged beyond the framework of the usual small talk. Delegates from the Western countries (as well as delegates from Moscow and Leningrad) experienced that the quality of life and the ordering of the affairs of life in Estonia differed significantly from that in the rest of the Soviet Union. Among other things, it was noted that Soviet Estonian scientists and captains of industry lived relatively comfortably in material terms, but many of them had not resigned themselves to the absence of national independence and spiritual and intellectual freedom. Occasioned by the events in Czechoslovakia, a particular humane solidarity was clearly felt between Estonians and participants from Western countries, regardless of the fact that these events were not expressly spoken about. The report also refers to the observation noted by a representative of a South American country as an example of the contradictory emotions that emerged among the foreign guests in Estonia: he stated that he had always loved freedom, yet he had never before experienced what it means to be deprived of it. He continued that he now knew that he would fight for the preservation of freedom.

The commentary of Enno Reinsalu, a young Estonian mining scientist at that time who participated in the symposium who is currently a professor emeritus at the Tallinn University of Technology, and Henning von Wistinghausen’s review of the symposium are appended to the report. In many respects, Reinsalu affirms the observations presented in the report and adds explanations to them based on the viewpoint of a professional specialist. Wistinghausen’s review adds a humane and personal dimension to his official overview drawn up half a century ago.