BALTIC STATES… A

number of leaders in the Baltic republics come from the Baltic diaspora–the displaced persons who fled or were expelled from the region in the 1930s and 1940s. The most well known is Lithuania’s President Valdas Adamkus, who fled the second Soviet occupation in 1944 and returned to Lithuania after a successful career in the United States as an environmental engineer and administrator. He is joined now by Vaira Vike-Freiberga, the new president of Latvia. Ms. Vike-Freiberga fled Riga at the age of seven in 1944 and grew up in Canada, where she was active in diaspora affairs and cultural activities. She returned to Latvia last year. Last week, Latvia’s parliament elected her president. She stood as a non-party candidate and was a compromise choice, chosen by 53 of 100 legislators on the sixth ballot…. Valdas Adamkus last week named a Lithuanian-American Vietnam veteran, Jonas Kronkaitis, commander in chief of the armed forces. Parliamentary confirmation of General Kronkaitis, who now serves as minister of defense, seems assured.