DALLAS PULSE POINT

By the time Dallasite Richard Fisher left the Carter Administration as special assistant for international affairs, he had acquired quite a name among international leaders. During his two-year term, Fisher met with 20 heads of state, from Deputy Premier Teng Hsiao Ping of China to the Shah of Iran. He gained exposure and acceptance in international circles as well as membership in several organizations, such as the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and the American Council on Germany.

Now, Fisher is Dallas’ resident manager of Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., but his ties to foreign affairs have stuck with him. Leaders from around the world have asked Fisher to periodically round up a group of local leaders whose opinions are indicative of Texans’ feelings on foreign policy.

So far, Fisher has hosted former Chinese Finance Minister Zhang, Japanese Foreign Minister Moriyuki Mo-tono, Dutch Ambassador Jan Hendrick Lubbers, German Economics Minister Count Otto Graf Lambsdorf and former French President Valery Giscard D’Estaing’s policy planner of foreign ministry, Thierry de Mont-brial.

“All these people have asked to come here, and they want to meet the powers that be in this area and understand how Texans think about foreign policy issues,” Fisher says. “It’s been an eye-opener for all of them.” Fisher says Dallas’ foreign visitors are usually interested in Dallas-ites’ views on four subjects: the Atlantic Alliance, Mexico, the Middle East and Texas’ status as a free-trade state.

When diplomats are in Dallas, Fisher rounds up about 20 prominent Dallas-ites to meet with them, sometimes including Democratic fund-raiser Jess Hay, Repub-licBank Corp.’s Charles Pistor, developer Trammell Crow, Betty Marcus, Bob Strauss, attorney John Johnson, oilman Edwin Cox, Republican Party County Chairman Fred Meyer and Bob Rogers, president and CEO of Texas Industries.

The opinions of the group members are important to the foreign visitors. Fisher says Count Lambsdorf once asked for their thoughts on the Russian pipeline. “One individual at the table said, ’Look, you’d better worry about whether or not we want to pull troops out of Europe.’ This had an impact on the man [Lambs-dorf] because he was talking to someone he knew was one of the most powerful businessmen in the country.” The German economics minister was in shock when he left Dallas, Fisher says. Lambsdorf had heard everything from staunch support of President Reagan’s policy on the Soviet pipeline to support of withdrawal of ground troops from Europe to hearing one of the leaders of the Democratic party say that George Bush is a liberal.

“Views of foreign diplomats are so skewed toward Eastern establishment,” Fisher says. “The new American establishment is going to revolve around the Texas/Cali-California axis… and it’s important that those who come to this country begin to realize that people have different political views here.”