(Archived document, may contain errors) 762 March 29,1990 HOW AMERICA CAN HELP BALTIC INDEPENDENCE The Baltic peoples struggle for independence is entering its decisive phase. For now, the spotlight is on Lithuania, where Mikhail Gorbachevs 1 show of force is an attempt to frighten into submission that countrys democratically elected government In the wings, ready to move to stage cen ter, are the independence movements of Estonia and Latvia.
Election posters in Vilnius, 1993.
Stasys Lozoraitis was named by Lithuanians as the “president of hope” (Vilties prezidentas) and “the only chance to try again”. But in the first presidential elections in 1993, he lost out to a former member of the Lithuanian Communist Party – Algirdas Brazauskas.
“I worked for Lithuania for 50 years, did not serve [in the army], did not make an oath to another country, and I was born under a Lithuanian passport,” proclaimed Stasys Lozoraitis, as he arrived back to a free country in 1993.
Years after serving as Lithuania’s unofficial ambassador in Washington while the country was still occupied by the Soviet Union, he represented what many hoped would be the country’s turn to the West and a final break with Moscow.