Hushang Ansary

Hushang Ansary was born on 16 July 1927 in Ahvaz, Khuzestan province, in what was then the Imperial State of Persia. His father was a bank clerk who had studied in India and who urged his sons to learn English and seek their futures abroad. Ansary told the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in 2023 that his father said, "I'd like you to leave this country as fast as you can," and repeated "English, English, English." He was the older brother of Cyrus A. Ansary, who became a lawyer, financier and author in the United States.

As a young man he used his English to work for foreign wholesalers shipping goods to Iran's bazaars, then became a newspaper and magazine photographer in Ahvaz, Tehran and the United Kingdom. He also worked as a correspondent covering the Soviet occupation of northern Iran for the International News Service and other news organizations. In 1954 he moved to Japan, where he continued in photography and business; he later said that "in Japan, making money was the easiest thing in the world."

Detailed records of Ansary's formal schooling are not given in the major English-language sources. Accounts by Kayhan Life and ICIJ stress that his father, a bank clerk educated in India, had him take English typing classes on Fridays after school and insisted that he master English, the skill that opened his first jobs with foreign traders and news agencies. Ansary was later a generous funder of education, endowing fellowships at Harvard University and Texas A&M University and supporting the University of St. Martin and Rice University's Baker Institute.

Diplomacy and government. In Japan Ansary met Abbas Aram, Iran's ambassador, who introduced him to Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. From 1961 the Shah appointed him to a run of posts, including undersecretary of commerce, ambassador to Pakistan and minister of information. He was Iran's ambassador to the United States from May 1967 to 1969, a period in which the embassy hosted President Lyndon B. Johnson at a reception for Prime Minister Amir-Abbas Hoveyda in December 1968.

Economy and finance. Returning to the cabinet in 1969, he took charge of the economy portfolio, and in 1974 became minister of economic affairs and finance in the Hoveyda and then Amouzegar governments. He oversaw the distribution of Iranian oil revenue abroad as aid and loans and co-chaired the US-Iran Joint Commission with Henry Kissinger. On 4 March 1975 the two men announced an agreement under which Iran would spend about 15 billion dollars on American goods and services over five years, plus plans for up to eight nuclear power plants; Kissinger called it "the largest agreement of this kind that has been signed by any two countries." In November 1977 he became head of the National Iranian Oil Company.

Business in America. Ansary resigned in 1978, citing health problems, and moved to the United States. Based in Houston, he founded the Parman Group, a holding company in leisure, textiles, international trade and real estate, whose subsidiary IRI International made oilfield rigs and equipment; he became its chief executive in 1997 and sold it to National Oilwell Varco in 2005. In 2005 he acquired Stewart & Stevenson, a Houston maker of power generation, oilfield and military equipment, and chaired it until Kirby Corporation completed its purchase in 2017. In the early 1980s he invested in the Mullet Bay resort on Sint Maarten, with Kissinger on its board, and in 2006 he acquired the insurer Ennia in Curacao.

In 1964 Ansary married Maryam Panahi, a prominent figure in Tehran society whose connections helped the couple build ties in Washington. They had two children, Nina Ansary, later an author and historian of women in Iran, and Nader Ansary. Historian Abbas Milani wrote that the marriage "came to a bitter end." Ansary later married Shahla Ansary (born Nazemian), his partner in philanthropy, and the couple lived in Houston, Texas. He became a United States citizen in 1986 and liked to be addressed as "ambassador" long after leaving diplomatic service, according to the Antilliaans Dagblad.

Ansary was a lifelong believer in close ties between Iran and the United States. As finance minister he predicted in 1976 that the United States would soon "occupy the first position among Iran's trading partners." In exile he became an active Republican, a friend of Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig and James Baker, a member of the national finance committee of George W. Bush's 2004 campaign, and a major donor to a super PAC backing Jeb Bush in 2015 and to Donald Trump's 2017 inaugural committee. He described his Caribbean investments as goodwill toward American allies, telling ICIJ, "The intention was to give them a helping hand." The Diplomacy Center Foundation called him "a strong advocate of diplomacy."

Ansary is remembered as one of the most powerful economic officials of late Pahlavi Iran, the minister who signed the landmark 1975 US-Iran economic and nuclear agreement with Kissinger, and as one of the most successful Iranian emigres in America. His name lives on in the Ansary Center for Stem Cell Therapeutics at Weill Cornell Medicine, the Ansary Gallery of American History at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library, the American Academy of Diplomacy's Ansary Outreach Program and the Islamic art galleries he helped create at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. In Curacao and Sint Maarten his legacy is far more contested, because of the Ennia collapse and its cost to policyholders and public finances. Historian Abbas Milani summed him up: "His mind was more agile than erudite, his determination was relentless, and his generosity was calculated."

Ellis Island Medal of Honor (2003). Woodrow Wilson Award for public service. Ansary Center for Stem Cell Therapeutics established at Weill Cornell Medical College in 2004 in honour of a 15 million dollar gift from Hushang and Shahla Ansary. American Academy of Diplomacy Ansary Outreach Program, named in 2004. Ansary Gallery of American History at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library, named in 2004. James A. Baker III Prize for Excellence in Leadership (2013). Great Immigrants honoree of the Carnegie Corporation of New York (2017).

Ansary appears in AP Archive newsreels from his ministerial years, including his January 1974 oil talks in India and the March 1975 signing of the US-Iran trade agreement with Henry Kissinger and a meeting with President Gerald Ford. He is profiled in Abbas Milani's 2008 book Eminent Persians and in Masoud Behnoud's Persian series Hezar Dastan. Investment banker Hassan Nemazee, who called Ansary a mentor and surrogate father, wrote about him in his memoir Persia, Politics and Prison. In 2023 Ansary gave more than four hours of interviews to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists for its Cyprus Confidential investigation.

Ennia. Ansary took over Ennia, a major insurer and pension provider in Curacao and Sint Maarten, in 2006. Former employees told ICIJ they were troubled by the transfer of his storm-damaged Mullet Bay property into Ennia and by large investments of Ennia money into his Stewart & Stevenson venture. In 2018 the Central Bank of Curacao and Sint Maarten declared the insurer was in danger and placed it under an emergency regime. In 2021 the Court of First Instance of Curacao held Ansary and former directors liable, with claims reported at more than one billion guilders and Curacao Chronicle reporting an order to repay about 522 million euros. The Court of Appeal later confirmed that liability existed, while the amount, which depends partly on the value of Mullet Bay, was still to be fixed. Ansary denied wrongdoing, said he had made a weak company more profitable, and told ICIJ, "I think this is the Ponzi scheme of the century, and I cannot do anything about it." After his death his lawyer said the appeal would be suspended until his heirs decided whether to continue it.

Wealth and politics. Contemporary accounts described him as one of the richest men in prerevolutionary Iran; Forbes once called him a "multimillionaire refugee." His large political donations in the United States drew press attention.

Hushang Ansary died on 3 January 2026 at the age of 98, according to the Antilliaans Dagblad, Wikipedia and the Diplomacy Center Foundation. Kayhan Life and some Persian-language outlets reported the date as 4 January, and Iran International said he died in his 99th year. He lived in Houston, Texas; the exact place of death and the cause were not stated in the primary obituaries reviewed, although Wikipedia lists cardiac arrest. Tributes came from the Baker Institute, whose honorary chair James A. Baker III extended condolences to his wife Shahla and the Ansary family, and from the Diplomacy Center Foundation. His lawyer Mirto Murray called him "a great man with a humble heart."