Following WWI, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were independent republics. This ended in 1940, when the Soviet Union occupied these three countries and incorporated them into the USSR.
However, the United States (and perhaps other countries) never officially recognized the Soviet occupation of these countries. The official American standpoint was that all three countries were still independant albeit occupied and where represented as such by Ambassadors to Washington. Presumedly these Ambassadors represented whatever government figures fled their homelands in 1940.
For five decades, this non-recognition was little more than a symbolic diplomatic protest in the Cold War. But in 1990, the Soviet Union collapsed and Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania once again became actual independant nations.
Did the exiled governments that were recognized by the US have any role in the reformation of these countries in 1990? Have they been incorporated into the new governments? Have they just disbanded and returned home? Do they still exist as a parallel government? Assuming the US now recognizes the existance of the actual governments of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, when did they withdraw recognition of the exiled governments?
Excellent question. I suspect the US didn’t have to withdraw recognition from the exiled governments, but merely recognized the new ambassadors, etc, whose arrival and so forth was probably facilitated by the exiles.
Off the point slightly, I recall a man back in the 1980s who faced deportation. Can’t remember if he was a double agent who had worn out his welcome, or what the story was. He was permitted to select where he would be deported to, and to confound the system, requested the “free and independent republic of Estonia.” (or one of the others, I don’t recall) The State Department recognized Estonia, but it only existed in an office in New York (which leads to another question: why did they abandon their embassy in DC after the Russkies invaded?). The judge took a more liberal interpretation of matters, and ordered that the individual be flown to Talinn, where the Soviets promptly imprisoned him. They had made his acquaintance in earlier years. It’s such a good story, I wish I could find the details again.
I don’t believe they were actually ambassadors. I’m not sure, but I think that the Estonian representative was a consul-general based in New York and that the Lithuanians and Latvians each had a Chargé d’Affaires in Washington.
In the case of Lithuania, representative-in-exile, Stasys Lozoraitis, Jr., was confirmed as the representative of the newly independent country in 1991. He served 2 more years in Washington before being appointed ambassador to Italy.
Thanks for the answers. This was the kind of thing I was looking for (especially the part about Stasys Lozoraitis, which would indicate that the exiled governments merged into the newly formed governments).
Anyone have any more info on how the government-in-exile thing worked. After fifty years, you have to assume most of the original representatives were gone. If the Estonian consul-general had died back in 1985, who would have picked his successor?
Hmmm, isn’t true that sometimes we just stop recognizing governments-in-exile altogether? I seem to think we deal an awful lot with Beijing instead of Teping (I think it’s Teping, the capital of Taiwan). Heck, we kicked Taiwan off the UN Security Council in favor of the “illegitimate” government of China.
Actually, Nixon did this, and it was probably a good thing, but the point is, it does happen.
We just went over this; the governments in Taipei and Beijing both claim to be the government of the whole of China. Beijing views Taiwan as a rebel-held province. And assuming your “we” means “the U.S.”, that’s simply wrong - in fact, the U.S. fought and voted against the expulsion of the Taipei representatives, and Congress considered withholding UN funding over the vote (now why does that sound familiar?). Only after it was a fait accompli did Nixon start making his overtures to Peking. There are some (mostly minor) governments who recognize Taipei’s legitimacy, but most countries have diplomatic ties with Beijing and informal contact with the Taipei government.