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Valdas Adamkus
BDF Summit 2010.06.01 587 (4709180104) (cropped).jpg
Adamkus in 2010
5th and 7th President of Lithuania
In office
12 July 2004 – 12 July 2009
Prime Minister
List
Algirdas Brazauskas
Zigmantas Balčytis (Acting)
Gediminas Kirkilas
Andrius Kubilius
Preceded by Artūras Paulauskas (Acting)
Succeeded by Dalia Grybauskaitė
In office
26 February 1998 – 26 February 2003
Prime Minister
List
Gediminas Vagnorius
Irena Degutienė (Acting)
Rolandas Paksas
Irena Degutienė (Acting)
Andrius Kubilius
Rolandas Paksas
Eugenijus Gentvilas (Acting)
Algirdas Brazauskas
Preceded by Algirdas Brazauskas
Succeeded by Rolandas Paksas
Personal details
Born
Voldemaras Adamkavičius

(1926-11-03) 3 November 1926 (age 98)
Kaunas, Lithuania
Political party Independent
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1951; her death 2023)​
Alma mater University of Munich
Illinois Institute of Technology
Profession Civil engineer, civil servant
Signature
Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus and Vice President Dick Cheney in Vilnius, Lithuania
President Adamkus meeting with Vice President of the United States Dick Cheney in Lithuania. The meeting took place during the Vilnius Conference 2006: Common Visions for Common Neighborhoods.
Valdas Adamkus and George W. Bush in Vilnius, Lithuania (2002)
Adamkus shaking hands with George W. Bush in the Presidential Palace in Vilnius. In the background is a copy of a famous sculpture by Juozas Zikaras, the Statue of Liberty.
Lech Kaczyński, Mikheil Saakashvili and Valdas Adamkus in Tblisi 2007
Mikheil Saakashvili, Lech Kaczyński and Valdas Adamkus in Tbilisi, November 2007

Valdas Adamkus (Lithuanian: [ˈvɐ̂ˑɫdɐs ɐˈdɐmˑkʊs]; born Voldemaras Adamkavičius; 3 November 1926) is a Lithuanian politician, diplomat and civil engineer who served as the fifth and seventh president of Lithuania from 1998 to 2003 and again from 2004 to 2009.

Adamkus' first tenure as president lasted for five years, from 26 February 1998 to 28 February 2003, following his defeat by Rolandas Paksas in the 2003 presidential election. Paksas was later impeached and removed from office by a parliamentary vote on 6 April 2004. Soon afterwards, when a new election was announced, Adamkus again ran for president and was re-elected. His approval ratings increased during this period and become a highly regarded moral authority in the state. He was succeeded as president on 12 July 2009 by Dalia Grybauskaitė. He is considered by some as being one of the best Lithuanian leaders in modern history.

He was married to Alma Adamkienė, who was involved in charitable activities in Lithuania. Following the end of his term as president, Adamkus remained involved in international development, and is a member of the European Academy of Diplomacy.

Biography

Valdas Adamkus was born on 3 November 1926 into a Roman Catholic family in Kaunas. He was originally given the name "Voldemaras Adamkavičius" but had it changed to "Valdas Adamkus" in 1955. His father was one of the first heads of the Lithuanian Air Force School in the Republic of Lithuania. His uncle was Edvardas Adamkavičius, who was a general in the Lithuanian Armed Forces during the interwar period. During his youth, Adamkus was interested in track and field. He also set the national record for running 100 meters.

As a young man, Adamkus joined the underground resistance against the first Soviet occupation of Lithuania in 1940. Under the Nazi occupation, while attending high school, he distributed an anti-German underground newspaper. In 1944, as the Soviets were invading Lithuania for a second time in four years, he fought against the second occupation by joining the Fatherland Defense Force, which was crushed by the numerically superior Soviet forces. He and his family fled Lithuania in order to avoid the second Soviet occupation.

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 United States 5th Army Reserve's military intelligence unit in the 1950s. In 1951, Adamkus married Alma Nutautaite. They had no children.

After arriving in Chicago, Illinois, as a displaced person, he first worked in an automobile factory and later as a draftsman. Adamkus graduated as a civil engineer from Illinois Institute of Technology in 1961. While a student, Adamkus, together with other Lithuanian Americans, collected about 40,000 signatures petitioning the United States government to intervene in the ongoing deportations of Lithuanians to Siberia by the Soviets. The petition was presented to then-Vice President Richard Nixon. Adamkus also raised concerns about other Soviet activities in occupied Lithuania to United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld in 1958, and to President John F. Kennedy in 1962.

Career in the United States Environmental Protection Agency

He joined the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) at its inception in 1970, working in Cincinnati. In 1981, he was appointed regional administrator by President Ronald Reagan, and 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.

In 1972, Adamkus visited Lithuania for the first time in almost thirty years. He was a member of the official delegation from the United States attending an environmental conference in Moscow. As perestroika took root in the Soviet Union, Adamkus's 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".

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. Doubts arose whether Adamkus was eligible to run for the presidency due to having spent over half a century abroad, raising 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 Rolandas Paksas.

He returned to politics after the presidential scandal of 2003 and 2004, when his former rival Paksas was impeached and removed from office. In the first round of the 2004 election, held on 13 June 2004, 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 27 June 2004, which Adamkus won with about 52% of the votes against Kazimira Prunskienė. By 2009, he had served the two presidential terms permitted by the Constitution of Lithuania and was succeeded as president by Dalia Grybauskaitė.

In 2003, Valdas Adamkus was named UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for the Construction of Knowledge Societies. The Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, noted that 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, dialog 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 22 July, 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 supports an active dialog between European Union member states and 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 Adamkus is an Honorary Member of The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation.

Domestic affairs

Valdas Adamkus enjoyed 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

Valdas Adamkus and his wife Alma Adamkiene funded the manufacturing and installment of the largest bell of Kaunas Carillon which weights 751 kg.

Honours and awards

National honours

  •  Lithuania: Recipient of the Order of Vytautas the Great with Golden Chain (2003)
  •  Lithuania: Recipient of the Lithuanian Scout Association Order of Iron Wolf (2002)
  •  Lithuania: Recipient of the Medal for Merits to Vilnius and the Nation (2019)
  •  Lithuania: Recipient of the Golden Order of the State Emblem of Lithuania (2019)
  •  Lithuania: Recipient of the Riflemen's Star

Foreign honours

Honorary doctorates

Adamkus holds honorary doctorates at universities in Lithuania, the United States, and other countries, including:

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Valdas Adamkus para niños

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