While President Bush was speaking so eloquently of the link between the expansion of freedom in the world and America’s own security, a good number of New Yorkers were sparing a thought for Walter Wriston, who died Wednesday evening at the age of 85. The son of a university president and a teacher, he gave up his ambition of a career in the foreign service and went into banking. We first encountered him in Hong Kong in the mid-1970s, when he was the head of Citibank and it was in the thick of the great contest over whether communism or capitalism was going to be the better engine of development in what was then called the Third World. We will never forget watching him best a press conference of classically cynical reporters as he defended his lending to some of the poorest nations on the planet.

Though the collapse of the idea of communism had not yet become apparent to the intelligentsia, it is clear that it was already apparent to Wriston. By the time the Soviet bloc had crumbled, by the time members of the nonaligned movement began to align with the West, Wriston had long since towered over more than Asia and the international arena. He played a leading role in the idea that America’s financial institutions, its economy, indeed its people, could also be liberated from the strictures of an earlier time – by technology, by the free flow of information and capital, and by changes in the law. He saw past Glass-Steagall to the possibilities of a national, and international, marketplace. And when it was time to leave Citibank, he went on to other great things, never to look back, or second-guess, or complain.

A friend has listed Wriston, with A.P. Gianinni and J.P. Morgan, as among the three greatest bankers since Hamilton. He was also a great New Yorker. He served not only at the Manhattan Institute but also gave, for more than two decades, to New York Hospital, where he served on the board. He was an inspiring figure not only for his integrity but also for his willingness to risk all on the principles in which he believed. And because he devoted time to listening and learning and bringing others into the debate. Each year in the city, one of the most glittering evenings is the annual lecture named for him by the Manhattan Institute. It would not surprise us a bit if, generations hence, New Yorkers are still gathering at one of our ballrooms to hear another illuminating talk, make contact with friends in the great struggle, and feel the spirit of this modest banker who dared to take risks.