Mar 3, 2025 17:25 IST
First printed on: Mar 3, 2025 at 17:25 IST
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Frank G Wisner (1939 – 2025), who handed away in New York on February 24 as a consequence of lung most cancers, might be remembered as an completed and affable American ambassador. He was acknowledged by his friends in capitals the world over, the place he served with distinction, as a extremely competent hands-on diplomat who superior and guarded the US nationwide curiosity with suave tenacity.
Wisner served because the US ambassador to India from June 1994 to July 1997 and had the uncommon distinction of being the American plenipotentiary when 4 Indian Prime Ministers have been in South Block (a few of them albeit, for very quick intervals): P V Narasimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, H D Deve Gowda and I Ok Gujral.
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The nuclear weapons concern that had led to tensions between India and the US, going again to the 1974 PNE (peaceable nuclear explosion) was bitterly contested between Washington and Delhi throughout the first time period of the Clinton presidency (1993 – 97). Ambassador Wisner assumed workplace throughout that interval.
The US was decided to fetter India, which remained resolute in not signing the NPT (nuclear non-proliferation treaty) that forbade nations exterior the choose 5 (US, Russia, UK, France and China) from buying this apocalyptic functionality. Indian prime ministers from Indira Gandhi to P V Narasimha Rao declared that this was an unequal treaty and characterised this transfer by the 5 nuclear haves as a case of looking for to ‘disarm the unarmed’.
Since India wouldn’t signal the NPT, Washington got here up with a distinct plan. A brand new treaty was floated – the CTBT (complete check ban treaty) – that might compel all of the signatories to surrender any sort of nuclear explosive testing – a should for designing and proving the efficacy of a nuclear weapon. Clinton’s directive to Wisner was clear: Lasso India via the CTBT. Therefore, appreciable effort was put in by the Individuals to compel the Narasimha Rao authorities (1992-96), which had simply embarked upon the financial liberalisation program.
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Senior officers within the Indian overseas ministry who handled Ambassador Wisner in that interval recall him as being a hard-nosed interlocutor who, whereas affable and courteous, was agency within the message that he needed to convey: Delhi should signal the CTBT. This was the part when the Rao authorities made preparations to hold out a nuclear check, after which maybe adjust to the CTBT, however the US detected the preparation and compelled India to name off the testing.
Frank Wisner was the overseer in Delhi of the US’ nuclear coverage and one remembers the tireless effort made by US embassy officers to corral India, even whereas sustaining cordial contact with the federal government and the strategic group in Delhi led by the redoubtable Ok Subrahmanyam.
Wisner’s triumph was in persuading some main voices within the Indian media and the safety group to endorse the Washington line over the CTBT however PM Rao stood his floor and Ambassador Arundhati Ghose famously declared on the UN in September 1996: “Not now, nor later.”
Wisner left India in mid-1997 and retired from the overseas service however he remained lively as an adviser and trouble-shooter for the White Home. A lot to US ire, India examined its nuclear weapons in Might 1998 and Washington was livid. India was sought to be ostracised and penalised and the Indian embassy in DC needed to take care of the fall-out. Naresh Chandra, the Indian ambassador on the time, later recounted that Frank Wisner lent a quiet serving to hand in bridging the chasm.
After retirement , Wisner got here again to the India desk as a global affairs adviser for Squire Patton Boggs, a authorized and lobbying group based mostly in Washington. This was the part when the novel US-India Civilian Nuclear Settlement was being steered via the Washington maze and India prudently appointed the Wisner agency to construct assist for the Bush-Manmohan initiative.
Wisner was an ardent supporter of Observe II diplomacy and convened small convivial conferences at his house with the Delhi strategic group. He enabled the primary go to of the influential Washington-based BENS (Enterprise Executives for Nationwide Safety) staff to Delhi throughout PM Gujral’s tenure, and because the IDSA sherpa on the time for this go to, one can testify to the worth addition of this funding when the bilateral relationship hit rock-bottom after the 1998 nuclear exams.
A cigar and claret aficionado with a deep water-table on worldwide affairs and historical past, one had the chance to fulfill with Ambassador Wisner often in his latter years and his musings have been reflective in a nuanced method. He was involved concerning the feckless method by which America had expended its energy within the post-Chilly Warfare period, and earlier than the disastrous US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, he had famous: “We appear to be impervious to studying from our errors and subsequently ended up in tragic excesses in Iraq and now in Afghanistan.”
However Frank Wisner believed within the potential of India and as Geoffrey Pyatt, certainly one of his youthful colleagues, noticed: “Ambassador Wisner was really one of many founders of the fashionable US-India strategic relationship.”
The author is director, Society for Coverage Research
