Adamkus turns 100 after steering Lithuania toward EU and NATO

Former president Valdas Adamkus, who helped steer Lithuania toward membership in the European Union and NATO, is celebrating his 100th birthday. Politicians who worked with him remember him as a model of Western political culture, while close friends recall his and his late wife Alma’s warmth and simplicity, LRT reports.

“They never put on airs or acted as if they were special. They were such down-to-earth people,” opera singer and family friend Birutė Vizgirdienė told BNS.

Adamkus was born in Kaunas in 1926. In 1944, as the second Soviet occupation approached, he left for Germany. Five years later, he emigrated to the United States, where he trained as a civil engineer, held senior positions at the federal Environmental Protection Agency and took an active role in Lithuanian diaspora life.

After Lithuania restored its independence, Adamkus led Stasys Lozoraitis’s presidential election campaign. He was elected president in 1998 and served two terms, from 1998 to 2003 and from 2004 to 2009. During his first term, Lithuania completed EU membership negotiations and received an invitation to join NATO. The country joined both organisations in 2004.

Darius Kuolys, a cultural scholar who served as an adviser during Adamkus’s first term, said the president achieved one of his most ambitious political goals: securing Lithuania’s place in Western organisations.

“After winning the presidential election and receiving the nation’s trust, on inauguration day in February 1998 he announced in parliament and in Cathedral Square that his goal was to bring Lithuania into the European Union and NATO during his term. It was a very ambitious task, and Adamkus succeeded,” Kuolys told BNS.

Kuolys said Western capitals had doubts about the plan, but Adamkus managed to unite political parties and international partners behind it. He added that the country’s return to the West marked a turning point in Lithuania’s history.

Kuolys said Adamkus also understood that joining Western organisations required changes at home, including political agreement, reforms and a fight against corruption.

Former prime minister Gediminas Vagnorius said Adamkus was the president Lithuania needed as it approached the 2000s. In his view, Adamkus helped secure strong support from the US administration, which saw him as a leader who valued Western traditions and outlook.

Vagnorius also praised Adamkus’s contacts with NATO countries and his authority, describing him as a unifying president whose example future presidents could follow.

Seimas member Artūras Zuokas said Adamkus brought a different approach to politics and the relationship between government and the public. Zuokas first met him in 1993, when Adamkus was leading Lozoraitis’s presidential campaign. A few years later, Zuokas helped bring together people to encourage Adamkus to run for president, and the two grew closer.

“He was certainly a Western-style president in post-Soviet Lithuania, that is a fact,” Zuokas said, adding that Adamkus’s political direction was supported by parties that agreed Lithuania should seek EU and NATO membership.