Bimla Bissell, Vital Aide to Four U.S. Ambassadors to India, Dies at 92
Asia Pacific|Bimla Bissell, Vital Aide to Four U.S. Ambassadors to India, Dies at 92
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/21/world/asia/bimla-bissell-dead.html
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Her house was a hub for generations of heads of state, diplomats, journalists and artists, who relied on her for her political acumen and were buoyed by her friendship.
Bimla Bissell, the indispensable and well-connected social secretary to four American ambassadors to India who was a kind of unofficial ambassador herself, a shrewd local guide to the culture and complexities of a sprawling country, died on Jan. 9 at her home in Delhi. She was 92.
The cause was complications of diabetes, her daughter, Monsoon Bissell, said.
Ms. Bissell’s first ambassadorial boss was John Kenneth Galbraith, the erudite liberal economist who forged a deep bond with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India. He was followed by Chester Bowles, the adman turned civil rights champion.
Both were appointees of John F. Kennedy, and it was Ms. Bissell’s job to organize, among many complicated diplomatic extravaganzas, Jacqueline Kennedy’s nine-day trip to India in 1962, an event breathlessly covered by the global press. “Mrs. Kennedy Gets a Festive Welcome on Arrival in India” read the front-page headline in The New York Times when first lady landed, accompanied by her sister, Lee Radziwill.
It also fell to Ms. Bissell to gently let Ms. Kennedy know that the gifts she had brought her Indian hosts — leather picture frames stamped with the words “100% American Beef” — would not be appropriate.
When Richard Celeste was hired to be Mr. Bowles’s personal assistant and embassy protocol officer in 1963, he was flummoxed by the latter job description. So Ms. Bissell took him in hand.
“She took charge of my education with ease and grace,” said Mr. Celeste, who would go on to be a director of the Peace Corps, governor of Ohio and President Bill Clinton’s envoy to India. She also scooped him up for dinner every night until his wife arrived with their newborn.