The Kersten Committee
The Kersten Committee was a US House of Representatives select committee (1953–1954) that investigated the forced and illegal incorporation of the Baltic states — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — into the Soviet Union. It was chaired by Congressman Charles J. Kersten, after whom it is named. Its work confirmed and strengthened the Western policy of non-recognition — the refusal to recognise the annexation de jure — and Estonian exiles, ESPVK among them, gathered evidence for it.
The committee's work
The committee was established on 27 July 1953. It investigated how the Soviet Union had seized power in the Baltic states in 1940 and annexed them. Hearings were held both in the United States and in Europe, and some hundred witnesses gave testimony. The committee reported its findings in February 1954; its work was then continued by the Select Committee on Communist Aggression until the end of 1954. The inquiry took place against the background of the Cold War and the Korean War, as the US sought to understand how Soviet power seized control in foreign countries.
Estonian witnesses and evidence
Estonian exiles too came before the committee. Among those who testified were the former government official Johannes Klesment and the former foreign minister Karl Selter, who had taken part in the 1939 Kremlin negotiations; his testimony was written in Geneva in 1953. Beyond individuals, Estonian exile organisations worked for the committee: ESPVK officially assisted it, gathering and supplying the documentary materials its investigation needed (Välis-Eesti, 9 May 1954). So the exile Estonian community helped record the truth of the occupation in international history.
Significance: non-recognition
The committee's findings confirmed that the incorporation of the Baltic states into the Soviet Union was forced and illegal, and that the US did not recognise it de jure. This policy of non-recognition — together with the continuity of the Treaty of Tartu — was the legal foundation on which Estonian statehood survived the occupation, until independence was restored in 1991. The same principle was kept alive by Estonia's exile diplomats and organisations.
See also
ESPVK, Estonians in exile, The Treaty of Tartu.
Sources: Kersten Committee (Wikipedia); Select Committee on Communist Aggression, 83rd Congress (US House history). Archival source (Estonian exile press): Välis-Eesti 09.05.1954.