Adamkus turns 100 after a life bridging Lithuania and the US

Valdas Adamkus, who served twice as president of Lithuania after building a career in US federal service, turns 100 on November 3. LRT reports that its archives hold recordings documenting his life and work, including excerpts from some programmes being made public for the first time.

Adamkus was born in Kaunas in 1926 to a family of civil servants. His father, Ignas Adamkavičius, was a volunteer in Lithuania’s independence wars and one of the first heads of the country’s aviation school. His mother worked at the Ministry of Transport. Adamkus studied at Kaunas Aušra Gymnasium and took part in resistance activities during the Second World War.

He left for the West in 1944, first settling in Germany, where he studied at the University of Munich. In 1949, he moved to the United States. After working at a car factory, he enrolled at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

A career in the United States

Adamkus began working in environmental protection in the 1960s and joined the newly established US Environmental Protection Agency in 1971. He rose through the agency, becoming administrator of its Region 5 in 1981.

His work brought him back to Lithuania regularly. As an environmental specialist, he visited the Soviet Union and occupied Lithuania, while remaining active in the Lithuanian community in the United States. He was also one of the leaders of Santara-Šviesa, an organisation that sought to sustain free creative work among Lithuanians in exile.

“Santara was born with the main goal of preserving what could not be achieved through a free creative process in Lithuania at that time. That is how a spiritual connection with Lithuania was maintained,” Adamkus said in a 1996 interview.

A 1989 LRT archive report from Chicago described expectations that Adamkus might take part in Lithuanian political life. The journalist noted that television viewers had suggested him as a candidate for president, while pointing out that he was not yet a Lithuanian citizen.

Return to Lithuanian politics

As Lithuania moved towards independence, Adamkus’s environmental expertise drew attention. In 1993, he led Stasys Lozoraitis’s campaign team in the presidential election. Adamkus was elected president in January 1998 and won a second term in 2004.

After returning to Lithuania, he became a figure who, according to LRT, helped lead the country towards the West and raised its international standing and political culture during a decade in office.

Environmental concerns also brought him into the news during the transition to independence. On March 20, 1989, a major industrial accident occurred in Jonava and was dubbed the “chemical Chernobyl.”