‘Flying the Flag’ : L.A. Consuls of 3 Tiny Baltic Nations Swallowed Up by Soviets Keep Alive Hope of Regaining Their Sovereignty

When, at the age of 30, Leo Anderson was offered the unsalaried job as honorary consul in Los Angeles for the Republic of Latvia 53 years ago, he thought to himself:

“Why not? I’ll try anything once.” Franklin Delano Roosevelt was beginning his first term. Latvia and her sister Baltic republics, Lithuania and Estonia, were enjoying independence after centuries of subjugation.

World War II, which would erase the three little nations, was only an angry rumor. And as for the two men who would combine to destroy the freedom of the tiny Baltic nations, Joseph Stalin had consolidated his power in the Soviet Union and Adolf Hitler was on the verge of seizing it in Germany.

The retirement of Anderson, 83, as Latvian consul (“53 years is long enough”) at the end of the year marks an end to a little-known epoch in diplomatic history, the continuous existence in Los Angeles of the three Baltic consulates for more than half a century.

Anderson’s retirement also serves as a reminder that the three little countries still exist as sovereign republics--at least in the hearts of their peoples and in the eyes of the U.S. government.

For despite the Soviet Union’s occupation of the Baltic nations just before the start of World War II, Nazi Germany’s during the conflict and finally the Soviets’ again toward the end of the war, the United States has never ceased to recognize the independence of each.

That non-recognition of Soviet rule remains a cornerstone of this nation’s policy of opposing Soviet aggression throughout the world.

“We do not take lightly this policy of non-recognition, although what occurred happened 45 years ago,” said a U.S. State Department spokesman. “The Soviet Union took over by force of arms three independent countries and wiped them off the map.”

During that nearly half-century, expatriates from the three nations themselves have sought to keep alive the memory of their independent existence by maintaining formal diplomatic ties with the United States.

Lithuania and Latvia have legations in Washington. Estonia has one in New York City, which it chose as the base for its diplomatic mission, rather than Washington, after the three Baltic states achieved independence immediately following with the end of World War I.

South Dakota-born Anderson’s long tenure as Latvian consul here, at first blush, appears to have been an unlikely affair: He never has been to Latvia, does not speak the language and got his appointment as something of a fluke.

The law firm he was working for at the time of his appointment, and is still associated with, was approached by the then-Latvian consul general in New York.

“He said he needed someone to represent the country in Los Angeles,” Anderson recalled.

His bosses asked him if he was interested, and Anderson recalled replying: “I’ll try anything once.”

After Anderson was named to the job by the Latvian foreign minister and accredited by the State Department, he visited his former Spanish teacher at USC, who was the consul here for Argentina at the time.

“How do I find out what I’m supposed to do?” Anderson asked. The other man referred him to “a two-inch thick” manual.”

Stamping Visas

Soon he found himself stamping visas for Latvians visiting Los Angeles, mainly merchant seamen, helping persons planning to visit Latvia and smoothing the way for importers and exporters, trade between countries being a principal focus of a consul’s job.

After World War II, however, his job and that of his Lithuanian and Estonian colleagues became largely ceremonial, symbolic and educational.

The consuls “fly the flag” at consular and civic gatherings here, to remind both U.S. citizens and expatriate Balts that a government-in-exile continues to exist, and to supply schools, students and the just-curious with information about the three nations, Anderson said.

Even before World War II, none of the honorary consuls was paid, despite the fact that the jobs were relatively demanding.

Spends Own Money

Vytautas Cekanauskas, 57, Lithuanian consul here since 1977, estimates that even today he spends several thousand dollars a year fulfilling his function. Cekanauskas, who fled Lithuania in 1944 and now is an American citizen and an electronics engineer for Hughes Aircraft, said that maintaining the consulate in the library of his Thousand Oaks home is a labor he cherishes because, “I care about my heritage.”

“Our consular and diplomatic service represents a continuation of our country,” he said. “We are recognized officials of our country. It is important for us to have a continuity, just standing as a reminder that the U.S. government never recognized this illegal occupation.”

Anderson conducted his diplomatic business from his law office in Security Pacific Bank Building, calling on a member of the Latvian community whenever he needed an interpreter.

Currently, the Estonian post is vacant. Ernst Laur, who held the post for 15 years before his death last summer at 64, operated out of his accordion repair shop in Hollywood. Leading candidates to succeed him are two lawyers in their 40s.

‘Important Symbolically’

One is Laur’s son-in-law, Paul Johnson, 47 and American-born, who served several years as his father-in-law’s information officer. The other is Jaak Treiman, 42, who fled Estonia with his family when he was 6 months old and who sees the consul’s job as “being important symbolically from a moral standpoint by offering a degree of hope to people in the Baltic nations today.”

Ernst Jaakson, the Estonian consul general in New York for 28 years, said he will name Laur’s successor after consulting with the Estonian community here and with the approval of the State Department.

Anatole Dinbergs, 74, Latvian charge d’affaires in Washington since 1970, a member of the nation’s diplomatic corps during the period of independence and his country’s senior remaining diplomat in the world, said he plans to nominate a successor to Anderson “as a matter of principle.” But he said he is in “no hurry” because he wants to be meticulous in his selection.

Chief of the Lithuanian delegation in this country is Stasys A. Backis, 79, who, as charge d’affaires, presides in the same 55-room Washington mansion acquired by the nation when it was independent. The building, which had fallen on hard times recently, was rehabilitated with funds raised among expatriates throughout the United States.

Government-in-Exile

Backis is now the chief diplomat of the Lithuanian government-in-exile, as he has been since the nation’s envoy to the Vatican died two years ago.

Over the centuries, the three Baltic nations fell first to one conqueror then another, lastly the Czarist Empire. Then they gained their brief freedom by driving out the Russians after World War I. They again fell in 1940 to the Soviet Union following a short-lived Hitler-Stalin nonaggression treaty, were overrun by the Nazis during World War II and were retaken by the Soviets after the war. At that time, the State Department froze the U.S. assets of the three countries, chiefly precious metals valued in the millions of dollars, and those funds have been used for the upkeep of the legations, the two in Washington and the one in New York. A few years ago, the State Department pooled the funds of all three nations when Lithuania’s were running perilously thin.

The three Baltic countries are among more than 70 nations represented in the Los Angeles consular corps whose monthly luncheons and occasional formal dinners and receptions sometimes attract delegates from the Soviet Union consul general’s office in San Francisco.

‘You Shake Hands’

When that happens, Lithuania’s Cekanauskas said, “You shake hands--that is about as far as you go.”

Cekanauskas tells a story about one such occasion a few years ago, a consular corps reception here for President Reagan:

“I saw my Estonian colleague (the late Ernst Laur) talking to a stranger who turned out to be a consular official from San Francisco. Laur was wearing an Olympic pin in his tie and the other man thought he was a member of the Olympic committee and started a conversation. It consisted of this:

Hedges Answer

“The man asked Laur, ‘What country do you represent?’ and my Estonian colleague said, ‘You really wouldn’t want to know.’

“ ‘Oh, yes, but I do .’

“ ‘One of the small Baltic states,’ my colleague said.

“About that time I walked up and he introduced me as the consul from Lithuania. The Russian said, ‘My, my, we have one surprise after another here.’

“It was kind of a hello-and-goodby thing.

“Mr. Laur told me later, the Russian had said to him, ‘Estonia is a very beautiful country,’ and that he had replied, ‘Yes, but it would be nicer if you got out of it.’ ”