Adamkus, Valdas (1926- )

Lithuanian politician, President of Lithuania (1998- ). Adamkus was born in Kaunas. He joined the underground resistance after Germany seized Lithuania in 1941, editing an underground newspaper. He fled to Germany in 1944 with his family before returning to fight in rearguard actions against Soviet forces. Settling in Germany after 1945, Adamkus studied sciences at the University of Munich, then emigrated to the United States in 1949, working in engineering.

Active both in the Lithuanian émigré community and the US Republican Party, Adamkus later specialized in environmental protection, joining the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Increasingly involved in the politics of Lithuania after its formal independence from the Soviet Union in 1989, Adamkus campaigned for presidential candidate Stasys Lozoraitis in 1993, and for the centre-right bloc in the 1996 general elections.

In 1997 he resigned from the EPA and returned to Lithuania to contest the presidency as an outside candidate. Adamkus was elected president in January 1998 by a narrow majority. In line with the constitutional role of the Lithuanian president, the duties he took on were chiefly ceremonial, but he disproved scepticism about his capabilities by acting as an able representative of Lithuania abroad.