Wisner served as the US ambassador to India from June 1994 to July 1997. (Express archive photo)
Mar 3, 2025 17:25 IST First published on: Mar 3, 2025 at 17:25 IST
Frank G Wisner (1939 – 2025), who passed away in New York on February 24 due to lung cancer, will be remembered as an accomplished and affable American ambassador. He was acknowledged by his peers in capitals across the world, where he served with distinction, as a highly competent hands-on diplomat who advanced and guarded the US national interest with suave tenacity.
Wisner served as the US ambassador to India from June 1994 to July 1997 and had the rare distinction of being the American plenipotentiary when four Indian Prime Ministers were in South Block (some of them albeit, for very short periods): P V Narasimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, H D Deve Gowda and I K Gujral.
Story continues below this ad
The nuclear weapons issue that had led to tensions between India and the US, going back to the 1974 PNE (peaceful nuclear explosion) was bitterly contested between Washington and Delhi during the first term of the Clinton presidency (1993 – 97). Ambassador Wisner assumed office during that period.
The US was determined to fetter India, which remained resolute in not signing the NPT (nuclear non-proliferation treaty) that forbade nations outside the select five (US, Russia, UK, France and China) from acquiring this apocalyptic capability. Indian prime ministers from Indira Gandhi to P V Narasimha Rao declared that this was an unequal treaty and characterised this move by the five nuclear haves as a case of seeking to ‘disarm the unarmed’.
Since India would not sign the NPT, Washington came up with a different plan. A new treaty was floated – the CTBT (comprehensive test ban treaty) – that would compel all the signatories to give up any kind of nuclear explosive testing – a must for designing and proving the efficacy of a nuclear weapon. Clinton’s directive to Wisner was clear: Lasso India through the CTBT. Hence, considerable effort was put in by the Americans to compel the Narasimha Rao government (1992-96), which had just embarked upon the economic liberalisation program.
Story continues below this ad
Senior officials in the Indian foreign ministry who dealt with Ambassador Wisner in that period recall him as being a hard-nosed interlocutor who, while affable and courteous, was firm in the message that he had to convey: Delhi must sign the CTBT. This was the phase when the Rao government made preparations to carry out a nuclear test, and then perhaps comply with the CTBT, but the US detected the preparation and compelled India to call off the testing.
Frank Wisner was the overseer in Delhi of the US’ nuclear policy and one recalls the tireless effort made by US embassy officials to corral India, even while maintaining cordial contact with the government and the strategic community in Delhi led by the redoubtable K Subrahmanyam.
Wisner’s triumph was in persuading some leading voices in the Indian media and the security community to endorse the Washington line over the CTBT but PM Rao stood his ground and Ambassador Arundhati Ghose famously declared at the UN in September 1996: “Not now, nor later.”
Wisner left India in mid-1997 and retired from the foreign service but he remained active as an adviser and trouble-shooter for the White House. Much to US ire, India tested its nuclear weapons in May 1998 and Washington was furious. India was sought to be ostracised and penalised and the Indian embassy in DC had to deal with the fall-out. Naresh Chandra, the Indian ambassador at the time, later recounted that Frank Wisner lent a quiet helping hand in bridging the chasm.
After retirement , Wisner came back to the India desk as an international affairs adviser for Squire Patton Boggs, a legal and lobbying group based in Washington. This was the phase when the radical US-India Civilian Nuclear Agreement was being steered through the Washington maze and India prudently appointed the Wisner firm to build support for the Bush-Manmohan initiative.
most read
Wisner was an ardent supporter of Track II diplomacy and convened small convivial meetings at his home with the Delhi strategic community. He enabled the first visit of the influential Washington-based BENS (Business Executives for National Security) team to Delhi during PM Gujral’s tenure, and as the IDSA sherpa at the time for this visit, one can testify to the value addition of this investment when the bilateral relationship hit rock-bottom after the 1998 nuclear tests.
A cigar and claret aficionado with a deep water-table on international affairs and history, one had the opportunity to meet with Ambassador Wisner occasionally in his latter years and his musings were reflective in a nuanced manner. He was concerned about the feckless manner in which America had expended its power in the post-Cold War era, and before the disastrous US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, he had noted: “We seem to be impervious to learning from our mistakes and therefore ended up in tragic excesses in Iraq and now in Afghanistan.”
But Frank Wisner believed in the potential of India and as Geoffrey Pyatt, one of his younger colleagues, observed: “Ambassador Wisner was truly one of the founders of the modern US-India strategic relationship.”
The writer is director, Society for Policy Studies
