Hushang Ansary

Hushang Ansary
Minister of Finance
In office 1 March 1974 – 23 January 1979
Prime Minister	Amir-Abbas Hoveida Jamshid Amouzegar
Preceded by	Jamshid Amouzegar
Succeeded by	Ali Ardalan
Minister of Tourism and Information
In office 29 December 1971 – 1 March 1974
Prime Minister	Amir-Abbas Hoveida
Preceded by	Hassan Pakravan
Succeeded by	Mohammad Reza Ameli Tehrani
Ambassador of Iran to the United States
In office 25 May 1967 – 1 October 1969
Prime Minister	Amir-Abbas Hoveida
Preceded by	Khosrow Khosrovani
Succeeded by	Amir-Aslan Afshar
Personal details
Born	1 January 1926 Ahvaz, Iran
Political party	Rastakhiz Party
Spouse(s)	Shahla Ansari (m. 1947)
Children	Nina Nader
Residence	Houston, United States
Religion	Islam

Hushang Ansary (in Persian: هوشنگ انصاری, born 1 January 1926) is an Iranian-American diplomat, businessman, and philanthropist. He served for eighteen years in the Iranian government prior to the Iranian Revolution including as Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance and Iran's Ambassador to the United States from 1967-1969.^[1] He has been chairman or director of companies both in Iran and in the United States.

Political career

Born in Ahvaz, in Iran's Khuzestan Province, Ansary first worked as a newspaper and magazine photographer in Ahvaz, Tehran, and England before moving to Japan in 1954. There he met Abbas Aram, Iran's ambassador to Japan, who soon brought him to the attention of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The Shah asked Ansary to return to Iran and appointed him to several government positions starting in 1961, including Undersecretary of Commerce, ambassador to many African nations and to Pakistan, and Minister of Information.^[2]

In 1964, he married Maryam Panahi, a friend of ambassador Aram who had many high-ranking acquaintances in the governments of the United States and Iran.^[3] He served as Ambassador to the United States and then as Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance. His accomplishments during this time included assisting the Shah in lending millions of dollars in aid and grants to other countries and the signing of an agreement with U.S. State Secretary Henry Kissinger to build eight nuclear power plants in Iran.^[4]

By the 1970s, the CIA considered Ansary to be one of seventeen members of "the Shah's Inner Circle" and he was one of the Shah's top two choices to succeed Amir Abbas Hoveyda as Prime Minister. Ultimately, this appointment went to Jamshid Amouzegar, and Ansary became the leader of the Constructionist wing of the Rastakhiz party, which opposed Amouzegar's Progressive wing. Some of Ansary's supporters have seen Amouzegar's appointment as a poor decision in hindsight. Even his now ex-wife Maryam Panahi, to whom his marriage "came to a bitter end" according to historian Abbas Milani,^[5] has said that "not appointing Hushang was one of the shah's two biggest mistakes, leading to the revolution."^[6] In November 1977, Ansary became the director of the National Iranian Oil Company, but resigned one year later and moved to the United States, citing health problems.^[7]

Business and philanthropy

During his time in the Iranian government, Ansary also maintained a successful career in business. He was the director of an unstable company called Fakhre Iran, which he made profitable and sold to the government.^[8] Ansary arrived in the U.S. a very wealthy man^[9] and became a U.S. citizen in 1986.^[10] After settling in the United States, Ansary started the Parman Group, a holding company for leisure industries, textiles, international trade, and real estate, which included IRI International - a company that makes oilfield equipment. IRI International was sold to National Oilwell Varco in 2005.^[11] In addition to Parman Group, Ansary is the chairman of Stewart & Stevenson LLC.^[12]

Ansary is a devoted Republican,^[13] a former friend and business partner of Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig, and James Baker, served on the National Finance Committee of the Bush-Cheney 2004 Presidential Campaign and is a trustee of the George W. Bush Presidential Library.^[14] In 2015, Hansary and his wife donated $2 million to a Super PAC supporting the presidential candidacy of Jeb Bush.^[15]

He was involved in the creation of several medical and educational institutions, such as the University of St. Martin and the James Baker Institute.^[10] In February 2014, Ansary supported the A Thousand Years of the Persian Book Exhibition at the Library of Congress.^[1]

Ansary and his wife Shahla are based in Houston, Texas. He has two children, Nina and Nader, and is the brother of Cyrus A. Ansary.^[16]

Awards and honors

• Ansary is a recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor (2003) and the Woodrow Wilson Award.^[10]
• Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University established the Ansary Center for Stem Cell Therapeutics in 2004 in honor of a grant from Ansary and his wife Shahla.^[17]
• The American Academy of Diplomacy's Ansary Outreach Program was a two-year series of discussions, lectures, and seminars about U.S. foreign policy which began in 2004.^[18]
• The Ansary Gallery of American History at the George Bush Presidential Library was named in his honor in 2004.^[19]
• James A. Baker III Prize for Excellence in Leadership (2013) ^[20]

Notes

1. Urschel, Donna (27 February 2014). ""A Thousand Years of the Persian Book" Exhibition Opens at Library of Congress March 27". Library of Congress. Retrieved 27 February 2014.
2. Milani, p. 80.
3. Milani, Abbas (2008). Eminent Persians : the men and women who made modern Iran, 1941-1979 : in two volumes (1st ed.). Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press. pp. 80–84. ISBN 9780815609070. Retrieved 10 May 2015.
4. Milani, pp. 81–83.
5. Milani, p. 84.
6. Milani, p. 83.
7. Milani, pp. 82–84.
8. Milani, p. 81.
9. Milani, p. 83: "According to William Shawcross, Ansary 'was one of the richest men' in Iran."; Milani, p. 84: "...he had clearly come to America a very rich man—Forbes called him a 'multimillionaire refugee'—...".
10. Hushang Ansary Ellis Island Medal bio. National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations. Retrieved 2010-12-18.
11. Staff. "Bloomberg: IRI International". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 12 May 2015. http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=369990
12. "Hushang Ansary: Executive Profile & Biography". BusinessWeek. Retrieved 2010-12-18.
13. Milani, pp. 79, 84.
14. Staff (January 9, 2009). "Donors pay for carrier Bush commissioning". The Virginian Pilot. The Pilot Online. Retrieved 13 May 2015.
15. "Million-Dollar Donors in the 2016 Presidential Race". New York Times. 25 August 2015. Retrieved 14 October 2015.
16. Bill, James A. (1988). The eagle and the lion : the tragedy of American-Iranian relations. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 374. ISBN 9780300044126. Retrieved 13 May 2015.
17. Weil, Jonathan (May 2004) "New Stem Cell Center at Cornell". Cancer Biology & Therapy (Austin, TX: Landes Bioscience) 3 (5): 425–426.
18. "The Ansary Outreach Program". American Academy of Diplomacacy. Retrieved 2010-12-20.
19. "Grand Opening of Ansary Gallery". News From the George Bush Presidential Library Center. July 2004. p. 4.
20. http://bakerinstitute.org/about/james-a-baker-iii-prize-for-excellence-in-leadership/

References

• Milani, Abbas (2008). Eminent Persians: The Men and Women Who Made Modern Iran, 1941–1979. Syracuse University Press. pp. 79–84. ISBN 978-0-8156-0907-0.