[lbo-talk] Greg Gradin: More detail on Frank Wisner

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Wed Feb 9 04:38:11 PST 2011


[Mostly from Grandin's former professor on Wisner -- the two have known each other since 1958.]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/158392/i-smell-metternich-everywhere-frank-wisner-and-egypt

February 8, 2011 The Notion [The Nation Magazine Blog]

"I Smell Metternich Everywhere": Frank Wisner and Egypt

Greg Grandin

<snip>

Below are the comments of Stuart Schaar, professor emeritus at Brooklyn

College, who is an old acquaintance of Wisner Jr. I had Stuart as a

teacher when I did my BA at Brooklyn, and his knowledge of the Middle

East is unsurpassed. He is now retired and living in Morocco, where he

is watching events, like many of us, with a mix of hope and dread.

Here's what he says about his old schoolmate, an interesting

perspective on a man the New York Times describes as part of a

"distinct class in Washington: a corps of foreign policy realists who

came of age in an era when American power reigned supreme:"

"The Americans are f***ing up again, buying into Mubarak's line that

chaos will follow if he departs. Wisner, whom I've known since 1958 (he

was at Princeton with me and our paths have crossed over the years) is

a company man. His father headed the CIA's USSR and Eastern European

bureau and he committed suicide in 1965 because, as his son told me, he

killed too many people. Frank learned Arabic in Tangiers--we traveled

to the Sahara together in 1963--and then was posted to Algeria to study

the strategic hamlet program there, which failed miserably. He then was

posted to South Vietnam, to help set up the US strategic hamlet program

there. His ambassadorships include the Philippines to shore up Aquino's

regime, Egypt under Mubarak--I saw him there--and then India. He ended

his career in the government as undersecretary of defense. After

retiring he became vice president of the infamous AIG and was very

active in the international conciliation committee that was influential

in shaping Middle East policy. He also chairs a round table established

by him and Leslie Gelb, the president of the Council of Foreign

Relations, in Washington. They meet once a month to discuss crisis

areas. He therefore is the new John McCloy, with close family ties to

the CIA, a state department luminary, and has close contacts with the

generals and admirals in the Pentagon. His business credentials at AIG

make him a potent force, bringing together multiple forces of US policy

in his person. He used to be quite handsome, a cross between JFK and a

young Robert Redford, making him very sure of himself.... Once I asked

him in Princeton when he went off for a weekend where he always went on

Friday-Sunday. Without missing a beat, he said, "I play polo." To which

I, amazed, asked, "Who the hell plays polo in America?" I then asked

with whom he plays and he answered "the Mellons, Gettys, Rockefellers,

etc." He never would have made his comments to Munich without Obama's

permission. He's in the spotlight and is sowing confusion on purpose.

Obama is really following what Wisner said he should do, since the

president must have told him to say what he did."

<end excerpt>

Michael



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