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Valdas Adamkus (born
Voldemaras Adamkavičius on November 3, 1926) is a
former President of the Republic of Lithuania
. He served for two terms as
President of Lithuania, although they
were not served consecutively. In Lithuania, the President's tenure
lasts for five years; Adamkus' first term in office began on
February 26, 1998 and ended on February 28, 2003, following his
defeat by
Rolandas Paksas in the
next presidential election. Paksas was later impeached and removed
from office by a parliamentary vote on April 6, 2004. Soon
afterwards, when a new election was announced, Adamkus again ran
for president and was re-elected. Adamkus has one of the highest
approval rates among politicians in Lithuania and is regarded as a
moral authority in the state. He chose not to run for re-election
during the
Lithuanian presidential
election in 2009 and was succeeded on 12 July 2009 by
Dalia Grybauskaitė.
He is married to
Alma Adamkienė,
who is involved in charitable activities in Lithuania.
Biography
Adamkus
was born into a Roman Catholic family
in Kaunas
.
His father
was one of the first heads of the Lithuanian Air Force School in
the Republic of
Lithuania
. As a young man Adamkus joined the underground
against the first Soviet
occupation
of 1940. During World War II, his family fled Lithuania in
order to avoid the second Soviet occupation in 1944.
He attended the
University of
Munich
in Germany before emigrating to the United States
in 1949. Fluent in five languages -
Lithuanian,
Polish,
English,
Russian and
German - he served as a senior
non-commissioned officer with the
5th Army Reserve's military
intelligence unit in the 1950s.
After
arriving in Chicago
, Illinois
, as a
displaced person, he had to take on
menial jobs, and worked in an automobile factory, but later as a
draftsman. Adamkus graduated as a
civil engineer from the Illinois
Institute of Technology
in 1960. While a student, Adamkus, together with other
Lithuanian Americans, collected
about 40,000 signatures and petitioned the United States Government
to intervene in the ongoing deportations of Lithuanians to Siberia
which were
being conducted by the Soviets. The petition was presented
to then-Vice President
Richard Nixon.
Adamkus also raised concerns about other Soviet activities in
occupied Lithuania with
United
Nations Secretary General
Dag
Hammarskjöld in 1958, and with President
John F. Kennedy in 1962.
Career in the United States Environmental Protection
Agency
Adamkus joined the
United States
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on its inception in 1970
and was appointed regional administrator by President
Ronald Reagan in 1981.
Prior to that he
worked for the EPA in Cincinnati
. He was responsible for all air, water,
hazardous waste, and other pollution control programs in Illinois, Indiana
, Michigan
, Minnesota
, Ohio
, and
Wisconsin
. In 1985, President Reagan presented him
with the
Distinguished
Executive Presidential Rank Award the highest honor that can be
bestowed upon a
civil servant.
Adamkus managed to visit Lithuania for the first time in almost
thirty years in 1972. He was a member of the official delegation
from the United States attending an environmental conference in
Moscow. While
perestroika was
evolving in the Soviet Union, his visits to his homeland became
more frequent. Valdas Adamkus served as regional administrator of
the EPA for sixteen years, and retired in 1997, after twenty-nine
years of service. Upon his retirement, he received a congratulatory
letter from
President Clinton and a
Distinguished Career Award from EPA Administrator
Carol Browner. EPA Region 5 presented him with
the newly established "Valdas V. Adamkus Sustained Commitment to
the Environment Honor Award". While serving in the U.S. government,
Adamkus was active in the
Republican Party, but was
also respected by members of the
Democratic Party for his
personal and professional integrity.
Lithuanian presidency, 1998 – 2003
Shortly after leaving the EPA, Valdas Adamkus moved back to
Lithuania. Soon after his decision to run for presidency in 1998,
he faced a legal battle in the Lithuanian courts, as doubts arose
whether Adamkus was eligible to run for presidency due to the
length of time he had spent abroad and the possibility that he
might not meet minimum residency requirements.
However, the court
resolved the case in Adamkus' favor and no other obstacles remained
other than his U.S. citizenship, which he officially renounced at
the American Embassy in Vilnius
. He was elected as President of Lithuania in
1998, defeating
Artūras
Paulauskas in the runoff, serving from then until 2003, when he
ran for re-election, but was unexpectedly defeated by populistic
Rolandas Paksas. He returned to
politics as surprisingly as he had left, after the presidential
scandal of 2003/2004, when his former rival Paksas became the first
European head of state to be impeached and removed from office.
Adamkus ran for the presidency again and was re-elected.
The
first round
of the 2004 election was held on June 13, 2004, with Adamkus
securing 30% of the vote - more than any other candidate.
Paksas
could not run for office again, because a ruling from Lithuania's
Constitutional Court
disallowed him from running for public office and
he was, therefore, unable to register as a candidate. A
runoff election was held on June 27, 2004, which Adamkus won with
about 52% of the votes against
Kazimira Prunskienė.
Since his
inauguration on July 12, 2004, he has again been serving as the
President of the Republic of Lithuania.
In 2003 Valdas Adamkus was named
UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for
the Construction of Knowledge Societies. The Director-General of
UNESCO,
Koïchiro Matsuura,
noted that Valdas Adamkus was named as Ambassador "in recognition
of his dedication to the Organization's aims and ideals and with a
view to benefiting for the construction of knowledge societies from
his wisdom and extensive experience in many of UNESCO's areas of
concern, in particular promotion of social development, cultural
diversity, dialogue and international cooperation."
Lithuanian presidency, 2004 – 2009
Foreign affairs
Under the presidency of Valdas Adamkus, Lithuania actively promoted
democracy in the formerly Soviet Eastern European and Asian
nations. President Adamkus, together with President
Aleksander Kwaśniewski,
Javier Solana,
Boris
Gryzlov and
Ján Kubiš,
served as a mediator during
Ukraine's
political crisis, when two candidates in the 2004 presidential
election,
Viktor Yanukovych and
Viktor Yushchenko, each claimed
victory. President Adamkus recalled in an interview that "when I
asked what we could do to help,
Kuchma said
the friends of the Ukrainian people should drop whatever they were
doing and come to Kiev immediately.". The next day international
mediators met in Ukraine. The crisis was resolved after a new
election was held.
Valdas Adamkus and his Estonian counterpart
Arnold Rüütel rejected an invitation
to participate in a commemorative celebration of the end of World
War II in Europe in 2005. President Adamkus expressed the view that
the war's end, in Lithuania, marked the beginning of a fifty-year
Soviet occupation and repression. In response, on July 22, the
United States Congress
unanimously passed a resolution that Russia should "issue a clear
and unambiguous statement of admission and condemnation of the
illegal occupation and annexation by the Soviet Union from 1940 to
1991 of the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania",,
but Russia refused.
President
Adamkus supported an active dialogue between European Union member states and those former
Soviet republics such as Georgia
, Ukraine
, and Moldova
, that are actively seeking membership in the
EU. He expressed support for these
candidate members during the
Community of Democratic
Choice in 2005, at the
Vilnius Conference 2006, and on
several other occasions.
Valdas Adamus is a member of the
Club of
Madrid. He is an Honorary Member of
The International
Raoul Wallenberg Foundation as well.
Domestic affairs
Valdas Adamkus enjoys a very high approval rating in Lithuania. He
was also recognized for the second time for his support of
Lithuanian youth. President Adamkus was actively involved in
government reorganizations in 2004 and 2006. In his 2006 State of
the Nation address, Adamkus stated that his top priorities
were:
- Increasing public participation in the political realm
- Targeted and transparent use of the EU funds and opportunities
for building a greater well-being in Lithuania
- Reforms in public governance, education and science, social
support and health care
- The development of professional competence among civil
servants, especially in assessing regulatory impacts
- Approval of a political code of
ethics
- Direct mayoral elections, and elimination of the county system
- Construction of a new nuclear
power unit in Ignalina
- Legislation regulating the selection, appointment and promotion
of judges
- Controlling "brain drain" by
supporting research and higher education infrastructure
Awards
Valdas Adamkus has been honored with the following decorations:
Honorary doctorates
Valdas Adamkus holds
honorary
doctorates at universities in Lithuania, the United States and
other countries, including:
- Vilnius University
, 1989.
- Indiana St. Joseph's
College, USA, 1991.
- Northwestern University
, USA, 1994.
- Kaunas University of
Technology
, 1998,
- The Catholic
University of America
, USA, 1998.
- Lithuanian
University of Agriculture
, 1999.
- Illinois Institute of
Technology, 1999.
- Eurasian University,
Kazakhstan, 2000.
- DePaul University
, USA, 2001.
- Law University of Lithuania
, 2001.
- Vytautas Magnus University
, 2002.
- Lithuanian Academy of Physical
Education
, 2004.
- Yerevan State University
, Armenia, 2006.
- Baku State University
, Azerbaijan, 2006.
- Donetsk University, Ukraine,
2006.
- University of Notre Dame
, USA, 2007.
- Nicolaus Copernicus
University, Poland, 2007.
- Tallinn University
, Estonia, 2008.
- University of
Chile, Chile
,
2008.
- Klaipėda University
, 2008.
- John Paul II Catholic
University
, Poland
,
2009.
- ISM University of Management and
Economics
, 2009.
References
- V. Adamkus išlieka populiariausiu Lietuvos politiku
(Adamkus Remains the Most Popular Politician in
Lithuania), Baltic News Service (BNS), 22 July 2006,
Delfi.lt. Accessed 7
September 2006.
- Leonidas Donskis, Užsikimšusios politinės lyderystės arterijos (Clogged
Arteries of Political Leadership), Klaipėda, 24 April
2006, Delfi.lt. Accessed 7 September 2006.
- Roni Amelan, Valdas Adamkus to be named UNESCO Goodwill
Ambassador for the Knowledge Societies, Bureau of Public
Information, UNESCO.
Accessed 7 September 2006.
- Steven Paulikas, A
House Divided, Newsweek, 24 January 2006. Accessed 7 September
2006.
- http://jbanc.org/hres128.html Russia should admit
occupation
- The Club of
Madrid is an independent organization dedicated to
strengthening democracy around the world by drawing on the unique
experience and resources of its Members – 66 democratic former
heads of state and government.
- Valdas Adamkus, State of the Nation 2006 (PDF), Office of the
President of Lithuania. Accessed 7 September 2006.
See also
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