Hamilton Fish V
Encyclopedia
Hamilton Fish (also known as Hamilton Fish V, Hamilton Fish, Jr., or "Ham") is a publisher, social entrepreneur, environmental advocate, and film producer in New York City
. He was born in Washington, D.C.
to Hamilton and Julia MacKenzie Fish. He attended schools in New York City and Massachusetts, where he graduated from Harvard University
in 1973. He is currently the President of the Public Concern Foundation and Publisher of the twice-monthly independent political periodical, The Washington Spectator
, edited by Lou Dubose.
magazine, and its sister foundation, the Nation Institute. In 1977, Fish teamed up with Victor Navasky
and began the work of recruiting investors to acquire The Nation
. Together with the help of a group of limited partners that included E.L. Doctorow, Norman Lear
, Alan Sagner, and Dorothy Schiff
, Fish and Navasky began a decade-long partnership as Publisher and Editor of the country's oldest political weekly. During their stewardship, The Nation
experienced steady growth, modernized its publishing operation, prospered in many respects during the Reagan
years, and caused a measure of mayhem worthy of an independent political journal. The magazine waged an honorable if lonely battle over the history of the Cold War
, lost a landmark lawsuit over the protection of copyright in the Supreme Court of the United States
, and convened large scale conferences including the 1981 Writers' Congress, which examined the status of writers and their representation (and spawned the National Writers Union); as well as the Dialogo de Todas Las Americas, to establish a cultural and political discourse between north and south as a counter to the interventionist doctrine of the Reagan years. In 1987, Fish transferred his interest in the magazine to Arthur Carter, a New York
investor who had started the Litchfield County Times and who succeeded Mr. Fish as The Nation's Publisher.
From 1995-2009 Fish served as President of the Nation Institute, the foundation associated with The Nation
magazine. With support from donors including the Lannan Foundation and Paul Newman
, he developed a journalism fellowship program to provide support for progressive writers, a roster that would eventually include Eric Alterman
, Max Blumenthal
, Tom Engelhardt
, Chris Hedges
, Scott Horton
, Naomi Klein
, Katha Pollitt
, Jeremy Scahill
, and Jonathan Schell
. He also created the Alfred Knobler Fellowships, named for a benefactor and longtime friend of The Nation, specifically to support journalists of color. Recipients have included Pamela Newkirk, New York University
Journalism Professor and author; Gary Younge
, the US-based columnist for The Guardian
and The Nation
; and Ta-Nehisi Coates
, author, blogger, and senior editor for The Atlantic. With the help of the Lear Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, and the Puffin Foundation, Fish created an investigative journalism division to fund and oversee long-form investigative projects that were usually too expensive for independent publications to undertake; with Tom Engelhardt
he developed tomdispatch.com http://www.tomdispatch.com/, an important source of progressive commentary on the web; with Randy Fertel he developed the Ridenhour Prizes, which annually recognize whistleblowers, investigative reporters, and others who persevere in courageous acts of truth-telling; and with Victor Navasky
he founded Nation Books, which under Editor Carl Bromley and in association first with Avalon and then Perseus Books, grew into a leading independent non-fiction imprint. During these years, Fish also worked as a political advisor to George Soros
, and with Jeffrey Kusama-Hinte he helped to develop a lobbying effort on behalf of U.S. support for the International Criminal Court
, an initiative which President Bill Clinton
endorsed on the last day of December, 2000. In 2009 and 2010, Fish assisted Lewis H. Lapham
with development of the literary magazine Lapham's Quarterly
.
At the invitation of The Nation Editor Katrina vanden Heuvel
, he is overseeing preparations for the celebration of The Nation's 150th anniversary in 2015, including the production of a feature documentary directed by Barbara Kopple
.
, who had gained world-wide acclaim for The Sorrow and the Pity, his 1969 documentary on resistance and collaboration in Vichy
, France
. Ophuls had been forcibly separated from his then current project, a film on the legacy of Nuremberg
and its application to the American intervention in Vietnam
. With the backing of California
financier Max Palevsky
and the support of Paramount Pictures
, Fish embarked on a two-year odyssey to complete The Memory of Justice
and to arrange its distribution. The four and a half hour film premiered at Cannes Film Festival
in 1976, and appeared in the United States for the first time at the New York Film Festival
later that same year. Writing in the New York Times, Vincent Canby declared that the film had set a new standard for documentaries, stating "...The Memory of Justice expands the possibilities of the documentary motion picture in such a way that all future films of this sort will be compared to it."
Fish later renewed his association with Ophuls, and together with his producing partner, John Friedman, they commenced production of the third film in the Ophuls trilogy on the evolving legacy of the Holocaust. Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie
would take several years to finish, as the filmmakers followed the trail of SS officer Klaus Barbie
from his home in Bolivia
to Lyons, France, where he was tried for crimes against humanity. The film was distributed domestically in 1988 by Samuel Goldwyn Films
, and by Orion
worldwide. Hotel Terminus received the 1989 Academy Award for Feature Documentary.
With John Friedman and Eric Nadler, Fish produced Stealing the Fire, a documentary that traced the development of the uranium atom from the failed experiments in the World War II
labs of Nazi Germany through the successful invention of the centrifuge in the Black Sea
labs of the former Soviet Union
, to the eventual piracy of the separation technology and its transfer to Pakistani and Iraqi agents. Stealing the Fire was distributed nationally in theaters by Avatar
and broadcast on the Sundance Channel.
in 1971, Fish co-founded the National Movement for the Student Vote with Morris Abram, Jr. Conceived in response to the passage of the Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution
granting eighteen year-olds the right to vote, the organization was designed to assist prospective college-age voters whose efforts to register to vote on or near their campuses was resisted by local authorities.
Following graduation, Fish worked as chief fundraiser for the Ramsey Clark
for Senate campaign in New York
. Ramsey Clark
, a former Attorney General
in the Johnson Administration, ran as an anti-war candidate and reinforced his opposition to the influence of money in electoral politics by imposing a per person limit of $100 on contributions to his campaign. Clark won the Democratic primary that year but lost to Jacob Javitz in the general election. Victor Navasky
, with whom Fish later joined forces at The Nation
, was Clark's campaign manager, and Mark J. Green
, whose many subsequent campaigns Fish worked on, was director of policy and issues research.
After leaving The Nation
magazine in 1987, Fish entered a three-way race for the Democratic nomination for Congress
in a Westchester County district held by Republican Representative Joseph DioGuardi. The national media took note of the race when his 100-year old grandfather, Hamilton Fish III
, described his grandson as a communist and contributed $100 to the Republican in the race. The elder Fish, himself a staunch Republican, served in Congress from the Hudson Valley from 1920-1945. Famously memorialized in Roosevelt's enduring refrain, "Martin, Barton, and Fish," a phrase the President used to deride his most persistent adversaries, the elder Fish was still active in conservative circles well into his late nineties. In 1988, the younger Fish lost in a closely contested three-way Primary to Nita Lowey
, who went on to defeat the incumbent.
In 1994 his father, Hamilton Fish IV
, announced his retirement from the United States Congress
for health reasons, and Fish again entered a Democratic Congressional primary, in the largely Republican Mid-Hudson Valley district that his father had represented for 26 years. Fish won the Democratic primary handily, and although his father crossed party lines to endorse his son, he lost in the general election to Republican Sue Kelly.
, a Major in the Revolutionary War, and his wife Elizabeth Stuyvesant, a great-great-grandaughter of Peter Stuyvesant
, the Dutch mayor of early New York
, named their son Hamilton Fish
after their friend Alexander Hamilton
. Born in 1808, the first Hamilton Fish
became a Senator and New York Governor and later served from 1869-1877 as Secretary of State in the Grant administration. Four Hamilton Fishes have served as Republican representatives in Congress from New York.
and to restaurants and farm stands upstate. Fish also returned part-time to the public interest sector, commuting several days a week to New York City where he worked as Managing Director of Human Rights Watch
, under then Executive Director Aryeh Neier
. During this period, Fish was most prominently associated with the launch of the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival and the opening of HRW's European office in Brussels. Their first child, Eliza, was born in 1991. In 1992, they moved to Garrison, NY, where Sophia, their second child, was born in 1993. Fish eventually moved his family to lower Manhattan in 1997, where he entered his daughters in the local elementary school. The 2001 attack on the World Trade Center forced Fish to move his family out of the city temporarily and back up the Hudson River to Garrison, NY, in search of some measure of peace and the opportunity for his children to heal.
In 2005, Fish and his wife Sandra, who was raised in Houston, acquired an adobe home in Marfa, Texas
. Harper developed another garden at this new location and went on to create Farm Stand Marfa, a regional farmers' market serving the towns and communities situated on the Marfa plateau. Fish partnered with Ballroom Marfa, a center for contemporary art and culture, to create the Marfa Dialogues, a cross-disciplinary program of politics, culture, and the arts, with programs in Marfa and New York City.
Today, he manages a strategic consulting practice for clients engaged in socially conscious businesses, and is currently developing several new for-profit ventures based on socially responsible business models. Fish serves as President of the Alice Curtis Desmond and Hamilton Fish Library in Garrison, New York
, and is on the boards of Riverkeeper
, the Hudson River
and clean water advocates, where he is currently helping to lead a campaign to close the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant; the Gomez Foundation, which maintains and develops the Gomez Mill House
in Marlboro, New York
, the earliest known Jewish Homestead in North America; the Merchant Ivory Foundation, which preserves the archive of the work of Ismail Merchant
and James Ivory
and develops new independent film and cultural projects; and the Fund for Constitutional Government, which develops and sustains organizations that protect and reinforce basic constitutional principles.
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. He was born in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
to Hamilton and Julia MacKenzie Fish. He attended schools in New York City and Massachusetts, where he graduated from Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
in 1973. He is currently the President of the Public Concern Foundation and Publisher of the twice-monthly independent political periodical, The Washington Spectator
The Washington Spectator
The Washington Spectator is a twice-monthly, independent political periodical with a circulation of 60,000, published by The Public Concern Foundation. It was founded by Tristram Coffin in 1971 as Washington Watch, and became The Washington Spectator in 1974.The current editor-in-chief is Lou...
, edited by Lou Dubose.
The Nation
Fish is perhaps best known for his work revitalizing The NationThe Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
magazine, and its sister foundation, the Nation Institute. In 1977, Fish teamed up with Victor Navasky
Victor Navasky
Victor Saul Navasky is a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He was editor of The Nation from 1978 until 1995, and its publisher and editorial director 1995 to 2005. In November 2005 he became the publisher emeritus...
and began the work of recruiting investors to acquire The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
. Together with the help of a group of limited partners that included E.L. Doctorow, Norman Lear
Norman Lear
Norman Milton Lear is an American television writer and producer who produced such 1970s sitcoms as All in the Family, Sanford and Son, One Day at a Time, The Jeffersons, Good Times and Maude...
, Alan Sagner, and Dorothy Schiff
Dorothy Schiff
Dorothy Schiff was an owner and then publisher of the New York Post for nearly 40 years. She was a granddaughter of financier Jacob H. Schiff...
, Fish and Navasky began a decade-long partnership as Publisher and Editor of the country's oldest political weekly. During their stewardship, The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
experienced steady growth, modernized its publishing operation, prospered in many respects during the Reagan
Reagan
Reagan is an Irish surname, most commonly associated with Ronald Reagan, the 40th President of the United States. Reagan may also refer to:-Surname:*Nancy Reagan , widow of Ronald Reagan and First Lady from 1981 to 1989...
years, and caused a measure of mayhem worthy of an independent political journal. The magazine waged an honorable if lonely battle over the history of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, lost a landmark lawsuit over the protection of copyright in the Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
, and convened large scale conferences including the 1981 Writers' Congress, which examined the status of writers and their representation (and spawned the National Writers Union); as well as the Dialogo de Todas Las Americas, to establish a cultural and political discourse between north and south as a counter to the interventionist doctrine of the Reagan years. In 1987, Fish transferred his interest in the magazine to Arthur Carter, a New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
investor who had started the Litchfield County Times and who succeeded Mr. Fish as The Nation's Publisher.
From 1995-2009 Fish served as President of the Nation Institute, the foundation associated with The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
magazine. With support from donors including the Lannan Foundation and Paul Newman
Paul Newman
Paul Leonard Newman was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, professional racing driver and auto racing enthusiast...
, he developed a journalism fellowship program to provide support for progressive writers, a roster that would eventually include Eric Alterman
Eric Alterman
Eric Alterman is an American English teacher, historian, journalist, author, media critic, blogger, and educator. His political weblog named Altercation was hosted by MSNBC.com from 2002 until 2006, moved to Media Matters for America until December 2008, and is now hosted by The...
, Max Blumenthal
Max Blumenthal
Max Blumenthal is an American author, journalist, and blogger. A senior writer for The Daily Beast, he is the author of the New York Times bestselling book Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party....
, Tom Engelhardt
Tom Engelhardt
Tom Engelhardt is the creator of the Nation Institute's tomdispatch.com, an online blog. He is also the co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of the 1998 book, The End of Victory Culture: Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation.Engelhardt graduated from Yale...
, Chris Hedges
Chris Hedges
Christopher Lynn Hedges is an American journalist, author, and war correspondent, specializing in American and Middle Eastern politics and societies...
, Scott Horton
Scott Horton
Scott Horton may refer to:*Scott Horton , human-rights attorney and journalist*Scott Horton , libertarian activist and host of Antiwar Radio...
, Naomi Klein
Naomi Klein
Naomi Klein is a Canadian author and social activist known for her political analyses and criticism of corporate globalization.-Family:...
, Katha Pollitt
Katha Pollitt
Katha Pollitt is an American feminist poet, essayist and critic. She is the author of four essay collections and two books of poetry...
, Jeremy Scahill
Jeremy Scahill
Jeremy Scahill is an American investigative journalist and author whose work focuses on the use of private military companies. He is the author of the best-selling book Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, winner of a George Polk Book Award. He also serves as a...
, and Jonathan Schell
Jonathan Schell
Jonathan Edward Schell is an author and visiting fellow at Yale University, whose work primarily deals with nuclear weapons.-Career:His work has appeared in The Nation, The New Yorker, and TomDispatch...
. He also created the Alfred Knobler Fellowships, named for a benefactor and longtime friend of The Nation, specifically to support journalists of color. Recipients have included Pamela Newkirk, New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
Journalism Professor and author; Gary Younge
Gary Younge
Gary Younge is a British journalist, author and broadcaster, born to immigrant parents from Barbados....
, the US-based columnist for The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
and The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
; and Ta-Nehisi Coates
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Ta-Nehisi Coates is a senior editor for The Atlantic and blogs on its website. Coates has worked for The Village Voice, Washington City Paper, and Time. He has contributed to The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, The Washington Monthly, O, and other publications...
, author, blogger, and senior editor for The Atlantic. With the help of the Lear Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, and the Puffin Foundation, Fish created an investigative journalism division to fund and oversee long-form investigative projects that were usually too expensive for independent publications to undertake; with Tom Engelhardt
Tom Engelhardt
Tom Engelhardt is the creator of the Nation Institute's tomdispatch.com, an online blog. He is also the co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of the 1998 book, The End of Victory Culture: Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation.Engelhardt graduated from Yale...
he developed tomdispatch.com http://www.tomdispatch.com/, an important source of progressive commentary on the web; with Randy Fertel he developed the Ridenhour Prizes, which annually recognize whistleblowers, investigative reporters, and others who persevere in courageous acts of truth-telling; and with Victor Navasky
Victor Navasky
Victor Saul Navasky is a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He was editor of The Nation from 1978 until 1995, and its publisher and editorial director 1995 to 2005. In November 2005 he became the publisher emeritus...
he founded Nation Books, which under Editor Carl Bromley and in association first with Avalon and then Perseus Books, grew into a leading independent non-fiction imprint. During these years, Fish also worked as a political advisor to George Soros
George Soros
George Soros is a Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, philosopher, and philanthropist. He is the chairman of Soros Fund Management. Soros supports progressive-liberal causes...
, and with Jeffrey Kusama-Hinte he helped to develop a lobbying effort on behalf of U.S. support for the International Criminal Court
International Criminal Court
The International Criminal Court is a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression .It came into being on 1 July 2002—the date its founding treaty, the Rome Statute of the...
, an initiative which President Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
endorsed on the last day of December, 2000. In 2009 and 2010, Fish assisted Lewis H. Lapham
Lewis H. Lapham
Lewis H. Lapham is an American writer. He was the editor of the American monthly Harper's Magazine from 1976 until 1981, and from 1983 until 2006. He also is the founder of the eponymous publication about history and literature entitled Lapham's Quarterly. He has written numerous books on...
with development of the literary magazine Lapham's Quarterly
Lapham's Quarterly
Lapham's Quarterly is a literary magazine founded in 2007 by former Harper's Magazine editor Lewis H. Lapham. Each issue examines a theme using primary source material from history. The inaugural issue "States of War" contained dozens of essays, speeches, and excerpts from historical authors...
.
At the invitation of The Nation Editor Katrina vanden Heuvel
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Katrina vanden Heuvel is the editor, publisher, and part-owner of the magazine The Nation. She has been the magazine's editor since 1995. She is a frequent guest on numerous television programs...
, he is overseeing preparations for the celebration of The Nation's 150th anniversary in 2015, including the production of a feature documentary directed by Barbara Kopple
Barbara Kopple
Barbara Kopple is an American film director, primarily known for her work in documentary film.-Biography:She grew up in Scarsdale, New York, the daughter of a textile executive and studied psychology at Northeastern University, after which she worked with the Maysles Brothers.Kopple has won two...
.
Film
In 1975 Fish established a partnership with Marcel OphulsMarcel Ophuls
Marcel Ophüls is a documentary film maker and former actor.He was born in Frankfurt, Germany, the son of the director Max Ophüls...
, who had gained world-wide acclaim for The Sorrow and the Pity, his 1969 documentary on resistance and collaboration in Vichy
Vichy
Vichy is a commune in the department of Allier in Auvergne in central France. It belongs to the historic province of Bourbonnais.It is known as a spa and resort town and was the de facto capital of Vichy France during the World War II Nazi German occupation from 1940 to 1944.The town's inhabitants...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. Ophuls had been forcibly separated from his then current project, a film on the legacy of Nuremberg
Nuremberg
Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...
and its application to the American intervention in Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
. With the backing of California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
financier Max Palevsky
Max Palevsky
Max Palevsky was an American art collector, venture capitalist, philanthropist, and computer technology pioneer.-Early life:...
and the support of Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
, Fish embarked on a two-year odyssey to complete The Memory of Justice
The Memory of Justice
The Memory of Justice is a 1976 documentary film directed by Marcel Ophüls. It explores the subject of atrocities committed in wartime and features Joan Baez, Karl Dönitz, Hermann Göring, Hans-Joachim Kulenkampff, Yehudi Menuhin, Albert Speer and Telford Taylor.The film was inspired by Telford...
and to arrange its distribution. The four and a half hour film premiered at Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
in 1976, and appeared in the United States for the first time at the New York Film Festival
New York Film Festival
The New York Film Festival has been a major film festival since it began in 1963 in New York. The films are selected by the Film Society of Lincoln Center...
later that same year. Writing in the New York Times, Vincent Canby declared that the film had set a new standard for documentaries, stating "...The Memory of Justice expands the possibilities of the documentary motion picture in such a way that all future films of this sort will be compared to it."
Fish later renewed his association with Ophuls, and together with his producing partner, John Friedman, they commenced production of the third film in the Ophuls trilogy on the evolving legacy of the Holocaust. Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie
Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie
Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie is a 1988 documentary film directed by Marcel Ophüls about the life of Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie...
would take several years to finish, as the filmmakers followed the trail of SS officer Klaus Barbie
Klaus Barbie
Nikolaus 'Klaus' Barbie was an SS-Hauptsturmführer , Gestapo member and war criminal. He was known as the Butcher of Lyon.- Early life :...
from his home in Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
to Lyons, France, where he was tried for crimes against humanity. The film was distributed domestically in 1988 by Samuel Goldwyn Films
Samuel Goldwyn Films
Samuel Goldwyn Films is an independent film company founded by Samuel Goldwyn, Jr., the son of the Hollywood business magnate/mogul, Samuel Goldwyn...
, and by Orion
Orion Pictures
Orion Pictures Corporation was an American independent production company that produced movies from 1978 until 1998. It was formed in 1978 as a joint venture between Warner Bros. and three former top-level executives of United Artists. Although it was never a large motion picture producer, Orion...
worldwide. Hotel Terminus received the 1989 Academy Award for Feature Documentary.
With John Friedman and Eric Nadler, Fish produced Stealing the Fire, a documentary that traced the development of the uranium atom from the failed experiments in the World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
labs of Nazi Germany through the successful invention of the centrifuge in the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
labs of the former Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, to the eventual piracy of the separation technology and its transfer to Pakistani and Iraqi agents. Stealing the Fire was distributed nationally in theaters by Avatar
Avatar
In Hinduism, an avatar is a deliberate descent of a deity to earth, or a descent of the Supreme Being and is mostly translated into English as "incarnation," but more accurately as "appearance" or "manifestation"....
and broadcast on the Sundance Channel.
Politics
While at Harvard UniversityHarvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
in 1971, Fish co-founded the National Movement for the Student Vote with Morris Abram, Jr. Conceived in response to the passage of the Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution limited the minimum voting age to no more than 18. It was adopted in response to student activism against the Vietnam War and to partially overrule the Supreme Court's decision in Oregon v. Mitchell...
granting eighteen year-olds the right to vote, the organization was designed to assist prospective college-age voters whose efforts to register to vote on or near their campuses was resisted by local authorities.
Following graduation, Fish worked as chief fundraiser for the Ramsey Clark
Ramsey Clark
William Ramsey Clark is an American lawyer, activist and former public official. He worked for the U.S. Department of Justice, which included service as United States Attorney General from 1967 to 1969, under President Lyndon B. Johnson...
for Senate campaign in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. Ramsey Clark
Ramsey Clark
William Ramsey Clark is an American lawyer, activist and former public official. He worked for the U.S. Department of Justice, which included service as United States Attorney General from 1967 to 1969, under President Lyndon B. Johnson...
, a former Attorney General
Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general, or attorney-general, is the main legal advisor to the government, and in some jurisdictions he or she may also have executive responsibility for law enforcement or responsibility for public prosecutions.The term is used to refer to any person...
in the Johnson Administration, ran as an anti-war candidate and reinforced his opposition to the influence of money in electoral politics by imposing a per person limit of $100 on contributions to his campaign. Clark won the Democratic primary that year but lost to Jacob Javitz in the general election. Victor Navasky
Victor Navasky
Victor Saul Navasky is a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He was editor of The Nation from 1978 until 1995, and its publisher and editorial director 1995 to 2005. In November 2005 he became the publisher emeritus...
, with whom Fish later joined forces at The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
, was Clark's campaign manager, and Mark J. Green
Mark J. Green
Mark J. Green is an author, public interest lawyer and a Democratic politician who lives in New York City. He worked with Ralph Nader from 1970-1980, eventually as director of Public Citizen's Congress Watch, and is also the former president of Air America Radio .He was New York City Consumer...
, whose many subsequent campaigns Fish worked on, was director of policy and issues research.
After leaving The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
magazine in 1987, Fish entered a three-way race for the Democratic nomination for Congress
Congress
A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different nations, constituent states, independent organizations , or groups....
in a Westchester County district held by Republican Representative Joseph DioGuardi. The national media took note of the race when his 100-year old grandfather, Hamilton Fish III
Hamilton Fish III
Hamilton Fish III was a soldier and politician from New York State...
, described his grandson as a communist and contributed $100 to the Republican in the race. The elder Fish, himself a staunch Republican, served in Congress from the Hudson Valley from 1920-1945. Famously memorialized in Roosevelt's enduring refrain, "Martin, Barton, and Fish," a phrase the President used to deride his most persistent adversaries, the elder Fish was still active in conservative circles well into his late nineties. In 1988, the younger Fish lost in a closely contested three-way Primary to Nita Lowey
Nita Lowey
Nita Melnikoff Lowey is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1993. She is a member of the Democratic Party. She previously represented the 20th district from 1989 to 1993.-Early life, education and career:...
, who went on to defeat the incumbent.
In 1994 his father, Hamilton Fish IV
Hamilton Fish IV
See Hamilton Fish for others with the same nameHamilton Fish, Jr. was a Republican politician best known as a member of the U.S. Congressional Delegation from New York....
, announced his retirement from the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
for health reasons, and Fish again entered a Democratic Congressional primary, in the largely Republican Mid-Hudson Valley district that his father had represented for 26 years. Fish won the Democratic primary handily, and although his father crossed party lines to endorse his son, he lost in the general election to Republican Sue Kelly.
Fish family
The Hamilton Fish family represents one of the oldest traditions in American political life. Nicholas FishNicholas Fish
Nicholas Fish was an American Revolutionary soldier, born in New York City.He attended Princeton but left before graduating to pursue the study of law at King's College through the office of John Morin Scott in New York...
, a Major in the Revolutionary War, and his wife Elizabeth Stuyvesant, a great-great-grandaughter of Peter Stuyvesant
Peter Stuyvesant
Peter Stuyvesant , served as the last Dutch Director-General of the colony of New Netherland from 1647 until it was ceded provisionally to the English in 1664, after which it was renamed New York...
, the Dutch mayor of early New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, named their son Hamilton Fish
Hamilton Fish
Hamilton Fish was an American statesman and politician who served as the 16th Governor of New York, United States Senator and United States Secretary of State. Fish has been considered one of the best Secretary of States in the United States history; known for his judiciousness and reform efforts...
after their friend Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton was a Founding Father, soldier, economist, political philosopher, one of America's first constitutional lawyers and the first United States Secretary of the Treasury...
. Born in 1808, the first Hamilton Fish
Hamilton Fish
Hamilton Fish was an American statesman and politician who served as the 16th Governor of New York, United States Senator and United States Secretary of State. Fish has been considered one of the best Secretary of States in the United States history; known for his judiciousness and reform efforts...
became a Senator and New York Governor and later served from 1869-1877 as Secretary of State in the Grant administration. Four Hamilton Fishes have served as Republican representatives in Congress from New York.
Personal life
In 1989, Fish moved with his partner Sandra Harper to Hudson, New York and started an organic truck farm, where they grew heirloom produce and culinary and decorative herbs. They sold these items at the Union Square GreenmarketUnion Square Greenmarket
The Union Square Greenmarket is a farmers' market in Union Square in Manhattan, New York. It is held every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 8 AM to 6 PM. Saturdays are the busiest day of the four. The market is served by a number of local farmers...
and to restaurants and farm stands upstate. Fish also returned part-time to the public interest sector, commuting several days a week to New York City where he worked as Managing Director of Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
, under then Executive Director Aryeh Neier
Aryeh Neier
Aryeh Neier is an American human rights activist who serves as the president of the Open Society Institute and had earlier been Executive Director of Human Rights Watch and National Director of the American Civil Liberties Union....
. During this period, Fish was most prominently associated with the launch of the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival and the opening of HRW's European office in Brussels. Their first child, Eliza, was born in 1991. In 1992, they moved to Garrison, NY, where Sophia, their second child, was born in 1993. Fish eventually moved his family to lower Manhattan in 1997, where he entered his daughters in the local elementary school. The 2001 attack on the World Trade Center forced Fish to move his family out of the city temporarily and back up the Hudson River to Garrison, NY, in search of some measure of peace and the opportunity for his children to heal.
In 2005, Fish and his wife Sandra, who was raised in Houston, acquired an adobe home in Marfa, Texas
Marfa, Texas
Marfa is a town in the high desert of far West Texas in the Southwestern United States. Located between the Davis Mountains and Big Bend National Park, it is also the county seat of Presidio County. The population was 1,981 at the 2010 census....
. Harper developed another garden at this new location and went on to create Farm Stand Marfa, a regional farmers' market serving the towns and communities situated on the Marfa plateau. Fish partnered with Ballroom Marfa, a center for contemporary art and culture, to create the Marfa Dialogues, a cross-disciplinary program of politics, culture, and the arts, with programs in Marfa and New York City.
Today, he manages a strategic consulting practice for clients engaged in socially conscious businesses, and is currently developing several new for-profit ventures based on socially responsible business models. Fish serves as President of the Alice Curtis Desmond and Hamilton Fish Library in Garrison, New York
Garrison, New York
Garrison is a hamlet in Putnam County, New York, United States. It is part of the town of Philipstown and is on the east side of the Hudson River, across from the United States Military Academy at West Point...
, and is on the boards of Riverkeeper
Riverkeeper
Riverkeeper is an environmental non-profit organization dedicated to the protection of the Hudson River and its tributaries, as well as the watersheds that provide New York City with its drinking water...
, the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
and clean water advocates, where he is currently helping to lead a campaign to close the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant; the Gomez Foundation, which maintains and develops the Gomez Mill House
Gomez Mill House
The Gomez Mill House is located in the Town of Newburgh, New York, USA, on Mill House Road a short distance off US 9W, just south of the Orange–Ulster county line...
in Marlboro, New York
Marlboro, New York
Marlboro is a hamlet in Ulster County, New York, United States. The population was 2,339 at the 2000 census.Marlboro is in the southeast part of the Town of Marlborough and also the southeast corner of Ulster County.- History :...
, the earliest known Jewish Homestead in North America; the Merchant Ivory Foundation, which preserves the archive of the work of Ismail Merchant
Ismail Merchant
Ismail Merchant was an Indian-born film producer, best known for the results of his famously long collaboration with Merchant Ivory Productions which included director James Ivory as well as screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala...
and James Ivory
James Ivory
James Ivory may refer to:*James Ivory *James Ivory...
and develops new independent film and cultural projects; and the Fund for Constitutional Government, which develops and sustains organizations that protect and reinforce basic constitutional principles.
External links
- The Washington Spectator
- The Nation Institute
- The Sorrow and the Pity on IMDB
- Stealing the Fire on IMDB
- Stealing the Fire on Filmmaker's Library
- Hotel Terminus on IMDB
- Memory of Justice on IMDB
- METRO DATELINES; Hamilton Fish 3d Joins Race for House, New York Times, April 3, 1988
- Farm Stand Marfa
- Ballroom Marfa
- Marfa Dialogues