Bberg: Kashkari Leaps From Obscurity to Lead Role in Rescue

"Minutes before Neel Kashkari's public debut as the chief of the U.S. Treasury's financial rescue plan, he sat in a hotel lobby in Washington, unrecognized by many of the international bankers gathering to hear him speak.

By the time Kashkari finished his 21-minute address yesterday, laying out Treasury's first concrete details of the $700 billion bailout, a swarm of television cameras and reporters followed him out the door.

In less than two weeks, the 35-year-old former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker has risen from obscurity to center stage in the U.S. financial crisis. He has been given extraordinary latitude, and not much time, to set up an organization and procedures for carrying out the Treasury's counteroffensive on the market meltdown.

Kashkari and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson are ``doing this on a wing and prayer, and it's all happening quickly,'' said Paul Light, a professor at New York University who studies the federal bureaucracy. ``There is such pressure to get it done that I think all rules are out.''

Paulson today announced plans to provide $250 billion in capital injections to banks ``to restore confidence in our financial institutions'' and urged the banks to use the funds to spur economic growth."