Valdas Adamkus (born Voldemaras Adamkavičius; 3 November 1926) is a Lithuanian politician, diplomat and civil engineer and an American civil servant. He 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 26 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 he became 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.
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.
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.
Emigration to the United States
He attended the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München 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.
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 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
He joined the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) at its inception in 1970, working in Cincinnati.
In 1972, Adamkus visited Lithuania for the first time in almost thirty years as a member of the official delegation from the United States attending an environmental conference in Moscow.
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.
As perestroika took root in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, 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".
First administration (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."
Second administration (2004–2009)