Fred Fisher (lawyer)

Frederick George "Fred" Fisher, Jr., (April 19, 1921, Brockton, Massachusetts – May 25, 1989, Tel Aviv, Israel) was an American lawyer who first entered the public eye in connection with Senator Joseph McCarthy.

He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1942, summa cum laude. After serving in the Army Signal Corps during World War II, he attended Harvard Law School. He graduated in 1948 and joined the law firm of Hale and Dorr in Boston.

In 1954, the firm represented the U.S. Army at the Army-McCarthy hearings on Senator Joseph McCarthy's conduct, and Fisher and Jim St. Clair were the two attorneys initially sent to Washington, D.C. to assist Joseph Welch. On questioning them, Welch learned of Fisher's having belonged to the National Lawyers Guild while in law school and shortly after. Welch decided that that left-wing association made Fisher's participation in the hearings a potential problem, and a colleague, John Kimball, Jr., replaced Fisher on the case. On April 16, the New York Times discussed Fisher's situation in an article.

Fisher's name was more prominently publicized when McCarthy intimated on national television that Welch should get Fisher fired as a Communist, and that Welch had specifically chosen him for the abortive assignment. In response, Welch delivered some of the most memorable lines from the McCarthy Hearings, accusing McCarthy of "reckless cruelty" and concluding: "Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" Welch's criticism of McCarthy as callously slandering Fisher drew applause from the gallery, and is generally regarded as the crucial factor in the decline of McCarthy's political career. These proceedings have been recorded in the documentary film "Point of Order".

In the 1977 made-for-television film "Tail Gunner Joe", the scene was powerfully re-enacted, with Burgess Meredith portraying Welch and Peter Boyle as McCarthy.

Fisher went on to become a partner at Hale & Dorr. In 1973-74, he served as president of the Massachusetts Bar Association.

External links

* [http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/welch-mccarthy.html Transcript and mp3 of Welch-McCarthy exchange relating to Fred Fisher]

* [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-460953942838272185 Video of Welch-McCarthy exchange relating to Fred Fisher]