Frank G. Wisner was the most consequential U.S. ambassadors to post liberalisation India. He arrived in India in July 1994, after the post of ambassador had been vacant for 16 months. The choice of such a highly regarded diplomat compensated for the long gap, and indeed, Wisner gave such a stimulus to the India-U.S. relationship that his appointment was the compensation.
Wisner used his three years in India to put the economic and commercial elements into the heart of the bilateral. He was appointed by Secretary of State Warren Christopher to be his envoy to New Delhi, in time for the visit of Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao to Washington in June 1994. Wisner was delighted. India, he said, was a country with a “big stage, a lot of latitude…at a real turning point in her society.” “I found myself in a very high-profile embassy, arguing a new, post-war relationship with India,” he said[1]. India had been a political engagement for the U.S., but Wisner made it an economic opportunity.
It was the heyday of globalisation, where companies were larger than countries, and Wisner’s diplomacy fit right in. AmCham, or the American Chamber of Commerce, was a big deal in India those days, and it worked well with Roosevelt House, as U.S. Embassy in Delhi was called. Those were the days when big U.S. power companies like Enron, Cogentrix, AES were making investments in India. Breaking through the largely state-run sector was difficult and Wisner’s office made every effort to help, using his convivial nature, general affection for his fellow man, and a sharp mind.
Wisner also pushed for private investment in the insurance sector to promote the finance and banking engagement with the U.S. He recognized the potential of India in this area, where both countries had expertise. It laid the superstructure for banking and financial cooperation and led to the big leap in U.S.-India financial and IT cooperation. (He later became an advisor to U.S. insurance giant AIG, which partnered with Tata in India.)
He did this with the force of his affable nature, and his long experience of diplomacy. Wisner knew more than most. He was the son of two remarkable parents: the legendary Frank Wisner, one of four Americans who formed the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency, and “Polly” Knowles, a Georgetown hostess[2] whose invitations “no one could turn down” and who was an early fund-raiser for the Lincoln Centre in New York. His childhood was filled with men and women of high office, international diplomats, journalists and artists. Wisner was connected in a way no one else was. But he wore it lightly, and built his own formidable reputation as a diplomat.
In India, Wisner had two signature events. The first was a once a month, Friday morning at 7.30am breakfast hosted at Roosevelt House for U.S. company chief executives, to discuss their issues and try and iron them out. The second was more unusual. Every month, Wisner would take a group of CEOs and others interested in India, to a state capital on a visit. There, they would spend a day, speak to the Chief Minister and bureaucrats, and see how to settle business issues. It was the first time that foreign envoys paid attention to Indian states, which those who understand federal structures, know that is where the power lies. He built relationships with several, including then Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, which resulted in the visit of Yadav to the U.S. years later.
Wisner fiercely protected his country’s interest – which often overlapped with the Indian interest. When Enron as a company became unviable, the gas-based Dabhol power plant it built near Mumbai, lay unused, with a few private security guards on vigil. When their payments stopped, and the new plant lay open to plunder, Wisner was with his friend and colleague Sunil Mehta, and Murli Deora, a member of Parliament and former minister of petroleum. Wisner appealed to Deora to bring in the state guard for protection of the large U.S. investment and India’s national energy needs. Within 24-hours it was done. Dabhol is now part of India’s electricity grid. “Frank had a unique ability to solve problems,” recalls Sunil Mehta, then India head of insurer AIG and president of AmCham.
This was Frank Wisner. He had friends on both sides of the aisle in India. His engagement with the Congress party on India’s nuclear programme was the precursor to the U.S.-India Civilian Nuclear deal in 2006. His outreach to the nascent Bharatiya Janata Party which had just 41 seats in Parliament in 1996, as an opposition to respect, laid the foundation for the relationship of trust the U.S. and India now have.
Wisner was popular because he was accessible, reached out to people, made everyone feel comfortable regardless of where they were in the hierarchy in business or in official circles. The proof of that is in the numbers of his friends and admirers who have reached out to each other to remember him.
Wisner especially liked young people, and bold enterprises. He was an early friend, supporter and advisor to Gateway House, encouraging and urging the institution to “never give up.”
“Frank’s home was the world,” says Abhishek Mehta, to whom Wisner was a friend and advisor. “He could speak to a businessman in English, to a server in Arabic, the maitre d’ in French – all at once. He was as comfortable in Bombay, as he was in New York, Cairo, Paris or Thimphu. At the Taj Hotel in Bombay, Frank would order in his gentle, yet confident cadence: “Waiter, I’ll have a masala dosa, coconut chutney, a coconut water, masala chai and idlis. Many idlis.”
Manjeet Kripalani is Executive Director, Gateway House.
Amb. Neelam Deo is co-founder, Gateway House and former ambassador to Ivory Coast with concurrent accreditation to Niger, Guinea, and Sierra Leone.
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References
[1]Frank Wisner, “Interview with Frank Wisner” Interviewed by Richard L. Jackson, Library of Congress, March 22, 1998, https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/mss/mfdip/2004/2004wis02/2004wis02.pdf
[2]Claudia Levy, “Polly Fritchey Dies”, Washington Post, July 10, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2002/07/11/polly-fritchey-dies/828ee107-5c37-4f78-a19f-f2c1ea76dad8/