Vishwathi Ramadoss

artistic interpretation of Vishwathi by Nicole (@iknikblackstonevarrick on tumblr)

## Details

### Affiliations

The Government, The Institute, KR Development Inc.

### First Mentioned

Season 2, Cassette #4: Bardo Museum (1975)

**Ramadoss** is a secondary character in the second and third seasons of Within the Wires. She was the Secretary of Trade for the New Society, former mentor to Michael Witten, and an acquaintance of Claudia Atieno.

> *"Ramadoss, like most of Atieno's invited guests, was an avid art collector and ardent fan of Atieno's work. Ramadoss has a techically perfect smile, one that is vibrant and beautiful regardless of her intentions."* **--Roimata in *Cassette #4: Bardo Museum (1975)***
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## Biography

Ramadoss' hometown was Madurai.

At some point, she acted as a mentor to Michael Witten, who later became the Director of North American Trade. By 1952, she was the Secretary of Trade for the New Society and the direct supervisor of Witten. During the preliminary hearings for a surveillance scandal in Vancouver, Karen Roberts testified against Ramadoss, claiming that she was involved in domestic espionage. However, no supporting documents were produced, and in the words of Director Witten, "even if they were, the things Secretary Ramadoss could have revealed about Karen, if there were any domestic spying on businesses, would have destroyed her career."

Apparently, what Roberts claimed was domestic espionage was statistics recording basic data on commerce, to assist with global trade. Files were being kept on birthplace, age, gender and known health records, as well as parents' names **only** in the case of people who were already old enough to remember their parents' names.

On the 20th August, 1953, Michael Witten wrote a letter to Ramadoss further discussing Karen Roberts' disruptive and suspicious activities. Witten begins to suggest they embed a spy (which he was reluctant to call a spy) in the situation, but retracts this suggestion and instead asks Ramadoss if she could use her influence to find more information of Roberts herself.

On November 26 of the same year, Michael asked Amy to call Ramadoss's office and see when she would be free to take a call. It would be a long one, concerning the leak of some off-the-books plans to renovate old government buildings in Washington D.C. He was confident that she would stand by him regardless of if the Societal Council changed their stance on the Washington situation, and said that the hard part (telling her that he had messed up) was now irrelevant, leaving only the task of telling her what needed to be done. He said she was always looking for solutions, not excuses. Vishwathi subsequently smoothed things over with both the Societal Council and the public, much to Michael's wonderment.

She agreed to Michael's plan of passivity, waiting for opposition against Karen Roberts to strengthen on its own, although on February 15, he sent a letter saying that he had revised the effectiveness of this strategy. He had sent an operative, Leena Mäkinen, to gather information on Roberts, but the details he was able to collect her limited. He asked that Vishwathi use some of her influence to access off-book military budgets, as he suspected she was funnelling money into a militia or a police force in Western Europe. He also asked for Ramadoss' protection for his activities with Leena and her approval to continue this line of investigation. He said he would prepare a full report to be presented on April 1st.

On March 2, the journalists from Vancouver called the Office of North American Trade and asked questions about Vishwathi using survey data to discriminate against certain businesses. Amy neglected to pass this information on to Michael, and he found out by looking at her notepad.

On March 24, 1954, Michael called Ramadoss and asked her to come to Chicago ASAP. She apparently sounded unalarmed and totally calm, which was reassuring to Michael, as he hoped she would sort everything out. When she arrived in Chicago, Vishwathi avoided Michael's calls until she later met with him in a conference on March 29. At the meeting, she made clear to Michael that she had no intention of backing his plans in Washington, and was actually responsible for authorising Roberts' involvement in the project.

She later had Amy pass on the missing Vancouver files to Michael, with some amendments - his signature was present on letters indicating that he had offered and taken bribes. In amongst the letters, there were payments authorised for surveillance of merchants’ homes in Victoria, and authorisation for the use of physical intimidation of business owners who did not work well with Ramadoss. The intimidation tactic that caught Michael's attention was the injury of pets "in a way that lets them know they’re being watched" as with his cat, Constance, who had had her ear cut off on the 23rd.

Ramadoss did not fire Michael, but had him "demoted" in some way that remained unspecified, until she could devise the best way to deal with him. At some point before April 20, she had come looking for the Vancouver files which implicated Michael. He expressed a desire to Amy to throw her under the bus in his place, but he could find no hard proof that she had used him as a scapegoat.

In 1954, The original Vancouver files, signed by Vishwathi, were discovered in Michael's home and turned over to the authorities. He was promoted, and she was put under investigation.

Ramadoss was finally brought to trial in 1958. There was a surveillance scandal where it came out to the public that staff members of the World Council, under the oversight of the Trade Commission, kept secret and extensive records of international merchants, including artists such as Claudia Atieno. The records were uncovered by four journalists in Vancouver, and although Ramadoss was implicated, they could not prove that she had directly authorised the action and she never faced a tribunal. She received a "slap on the wrist", although Michael said that a literal slap on the wrist would have been a better punishment than the fine she was issued. She continued to work as Secretary of Trade, with some additional oversight.

After the conclusion of the investigation, though Michael was afraid for himself and his wife, she acted cordially to him and behaved as if nothing had happened. In 1959, she was invited to speak at a summit to the Board of Governance. At the end of her speech, she thanked Michael for his work in Washington with teary, prideful eyes, and indicated for him to stand so he could be applauded. The event unsettled him.

Over the next two years, she spoke to Michael about the work that Amy was doing at the Department of Child Development, and spoke well of her and what she was bringing to the department. Although Amy had Ramadoss' vote and she fought Michael hard about it, she could not get her new project proposal put in front of the World Council. They took the initiative elsewhere, and Vishwathi joined the advisory board for KR Development as they started work on the Institute.

In the early 70s, Ramadoss had a phone appointment with Rosemary, the director of the Institute. She rang early, interrupting a conversation Rosemary was having with Dr. Miriam Gregory.

Ramadoss' hometown was named in the title of one of Claudia Atieno's most notorious works, *Ferngulch, Madurai*, which was interpreted as a criticism of the 1958 surveillance scandal. She was a frequent visitor at Atieno's Cornwall home and her Mwanza apartment, despite Claudia's critique of her political position. They would have lively conversations, but usually avoided politics. Atieno strongly suspected that Ramadoss was spying on her. At some point when Ramadoss was at the Cornwall house, Atieno drew "Untitled Figure with Hat" which was later identified as Ramadoss by Roimata Mangakāhia in 1975. Ramadoss owned a collection of Atieno's works.

Ramadoss once told Roimata that she suspected Claudia of keeping in touch with her sister. She pointed out a drawing from Claudia's childhood, featuring a girl who looked similar to Claudia while Claudia watched, and commented that it was not Claudia's school. When Roimata asked how Ramadoss knew Claudia's sister, she smiled and declined to answer.

## Additional info

* The name "Vishwathi" could be a variant of "Vishwa" which means "all-seeing"

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Season 2, Cassette #4: Bardo Museum (1975)
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Season 3, Reel #7: March 29, 1954
3. ↑ Season 3, Reel #2: August 13, 1953
4. ↑ Season 3, Reel #3: November 26, 1953
5. ↑ Season 3, Reel #4: February 15, 1954
6. ↑ Season 3, Reel #5: March 2, 1954
7. ↑ Season 3, Reel #6: March 24, 1954
8. ↑ Season 3, Reel #8: April 20, 1954
9. ↑ Season 3, Reel #9: September 13, 1954
10. ↑ Season 3, Reel #10: June 21, 1961
11. ↑ You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.319
12. ↑ Season 2, Cassette #6: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (1978)