The Nation Fish is perhaps best known for his work revitalizing
The Nation 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 magazine, then in
receivership. 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
Ronald 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 Fish as ''The Nation's'' publisher. From 1995 to 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, directed by
Esther Kaplan and Joe Conason, to fund and oversee long-form investigative projects; with
Tom Engelhardt he developed 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 helped found
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 that 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's
editor Katrina vanden Heuvel, Fish worked on the design and implementation of the year-long celebration of The Nation's
150th anniversary in 2015. Fish currently manages a strategic consulting practice for clients engaged in socially active businesses, including the Baffler Magazine'' and Audience Engine, the new open source platform that offers audience development and fundraising tools to independent and public media organizations.
Politics After leaving
The Nation magazine in 1987, Fish entered a three-way race for the Democratic nomination for the
United States 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 (1888–1991), himself a staunch Republican, served in Congress from the Hudson Valley from 1920–1945. Famously memorialized in
Franklin D. Roosevelt's enduring refrain, "Martin, Barton, and Fish", a phrase used by FDR 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 the closely contested 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. Fish again entered into 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, and although his father crossed party lines to endorse his son, he lost in the general election to Republican
Sue Kelly.
Sexual Harassment Allegations at The New Republic In February 2016, Fish was appointed publisher and editorial director of
The New Republic after the magazine was purchased by
Win McCormack. On October 29, 2017, Fish began a leave of absence pending an independent investigation into complaints by female employees, according to a letter from McCormack sent to the magazine's staff. McCormack said he had asked Fish to "remain on a leave of absence", effective immediately after "having been made aware that a number of employees have come forward in the last few days to express concern about certain workplace interactions that have created an uncomfortable environment for them." McCormack further wrote. "As I understand them, these concerns relate specifically to interactions between Ham Fish and a number of women employees." On October 30, 2017, the
Huffington Post published allegations that, in front of several witnesses, Fish had choked a senior staff member at
The Nation Institute hard enough to leave red marks on her throat. On November 3, 2017, Fish resigned from his various positions. In a
New York Times article from November 3, 2017, Fish was cited as writing in response, "As I understand it, some employees, to my deep dismay, complained this week that my presence had led them to feel uncomfortable at The New Republic." The article notes he added later, "It's my sense that our office culture has been harmed, and the best way for me to help the organization move past this is by withdrawing." In the letter Fish also stated, "Women have longstanding and profound concerns with respect to their treatment in the workplace. Many men have a lot to learn in this regard. I know I do.:
Film In 1975 Fish established a partnership with
Marcel Ophuls, who had gained worldwide acclaim for
The Sorrow and the Pity, his 1969 documentary on resistance and collaboration in
Vichy France. Ophüls 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-hour-and-forty-minute 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." In 2011, Fish allied with the Film Foundation, the film restoration project headed by Martin Scorsese, to revive Ophuls' long-dormant masterpiece. The Film Foundation oversaw the reconstruction and digitization of the film and presented the premiere of the finished work at the Berlin Film Festival in February 2015. Fish and Ophuls, now 87, traveled to Berlin for the premiere, and Ophuls received the Festival's prestigious Berlinale Camera award. The Film Foundation has shepherded the restored documentary to festivals and screenings around the world, including a return visit to the
2015 New York Film Festival 39 years after the film's debut at the Lincoln Center venue. In the 1980s, Fish renewed his association with Ophüls, and together with his producing partner, John Friedman, they commenced production of the third film in the Ophüls 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
Lyon, 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, the 2002 documentary that traced the development of uranium atom separation 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 patent infringement 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. Fish served as a producer of
Food Chains, the 2014 documentary by
Sanjay Rawal about farm labor that focused in particular on the gains achieved by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, the worker-based human rights organization representing tomato pickers in Florida.
Food Chains helped spark a nationwide resurgence of advocacy around the workplace conditions and low wages of farm workers. Fish also developed the documentary
Hot Type, for which he served as executive producer. Directed by two-time Academy Award winner Barbara Kopple, and released in 2015 in conjunction with the 150th anniversary of
The Nation magazine,
Hot Type goes behind the scenes at
The Nation and examines the essential character of the independent journal.
Other organizations Fish serves as president of the Alice Curtis Desmond and Hamilton Fish Library in
Garrison, New York, and is on the board of the
Fund for Constitutional Government, which develops and sustains organizations that protect and reinforce basic constitutional principles. Fish also serves as chair of the Board of Visitors of the School of Global Journalism and Communications at
Morgan State University. == Personal life ==