Frank Wisner obit

American diplomat Frank Wisner, former US envoy for Kosovo status, passes away

 

He was not on the list.

Frank G. Wisner, an American diplomat, died Monday at the age of 86 in Mill Neck, New York. He served as ambassador to four countries and was the U.S. envoy to the Kosovo status talks.

The cause of death is believed to have been complications from lung cancer, his son David Wisner reported.

Wisner became a State Department official in 1961 and worked during the Vietnam War, joining a diplomatic circle that grew in stature that included his friends Richard Holbrooke, who helped negotiate an end to the war in Bosnia, and Leslie Gelb, who became a journalist and chaired the Foreign Affairs Committee.

For a few hours in January 1993, the day of Clinton's first inauguration, Wisner served as acting Secretary of State.

Wisner was the United States' Special Representative in the negotiations on the status of Kosovo, an effort that proved successful, although Wisner complained that Serbia still refused to recognize Kosovo's independence.

The American businessman and diplomat erved as United States Secretary of State following the resignation of the previous acting United States Secretary of State Arnold Kanter at noon on January 20, 1993 until the confirmation by the United States Senate and swearing in of Warren Christopher as United States Secretary of State later that day. He was the son of CIA official Frank Wisner (1909–1965). On January 31, 2011, he was sent to Egypt by President Barack Obama to negotiate a resolution to the popular protests against the regime that had swept the country. A White House spokesman said that Wisner had vast experience in the region as well as close relationships with many Egyptians in and out of government. The New York Times reported that he was a personal friend of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

Wisner was born in New York City on July 2, 1938. He joined the United States Department of State as a Foreign Service Officer in December 1961.

He was assigned as a vice consul at the American Consulate General in Tangier, Morocco. He served as third secretary at the U.S. Embassy in Algiers, Algeria. In 1964 he became a rural development officer at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, South Vietnam, for the Agency for International Development. He served in South Vietnam until 1969, when he returned to the State Department as officer in charge of Tunisian affairs. From 1971 to 1973, he was first secretary at the U.S. Embassy in Tunis, Tunisia, and following that, from 1973 to 1974, he was first secretary at the U.S. Embassy in Dacca, Bangladesh. From 1974 to 1975, he was Director of the Office of Plans and Management in the Bureau of Public Affairs and in late 1975 became Deputy Director of the President's Indo-China Task Force in the Department.

In 1976, at the beginning of the Carter administration, he served under Cyrus Vance as Deputy Executive Secretary of the Department of State. Among his overseas assignments, Wisner served as the United States Ambassador to Zambia (1979–82); Egypt (1986–91), the Philippines (1991–92), and India, 1994–97.

During his tenure in Lusaka, he played the role of point man for the Constructive Engagement policy of assistant secretary of state for African affairs Chester Crocker. Wisner worked well with Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda and helped to rebuild bilateral relations between Zambia and the USA after a 1980 spy scandal at the U.S. embassy in Lusaka. Crocker's efforts contributed to the organization and successful discussions at the February 1984 Lusaka Conference regarding conflicts in Angola and Namibia.

After retiring from government service in 1997, Wisner joined the board at a subsidiary of Enron, the former energy company and served on the board of American International Group (AIG).