BOARD TAPS DALLASITE

Richard W. Fisher, founder and manager of the Dallas office of the private banking firm of Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., is a nominee to the prestigious 24-member board of the national Council on Foreign Relations.

If elected later this month to the private, non-profit, non-partisan foreign policy “think tank,” Fisher, 35, will be the youngest board member and the only Texan on the board.

Those two facts are significant enough to warrant speculation that the directors of the 2,000-plus-member organization may be trying to include more (and younger) members from the southern and western regions of the United States.

More than 60 percent of the current membership resides in the New York City and Washington, D.C., areas. This is the same group that turned down former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for its board in 1981 during a complicated voting process.

Fisher has been an active member of the council since 1976 and served as assistant and advisor to former Secretary of the Treasury W. Michael Blumenthal under the Carter administration. He’s also a graduate of Oxford University, Harvard University and Stanford Business School. Former U.S. Rep. Jim Collins is Fisher’s father-in-law.

Despite Fisher’s political ties, he says he was shocked and flattered when he received a letter from nominating chairman Warren Christopher. Fisher analyzed the unusual move by saying, “There is a tremendous transfer of power taking place, and I’ve written about it and spoken about it. I went to Washington with Gov. Mark White, and he gave a speech about it that was very well-received. I think it indicates a desire on the council’s part to have people from Texas and the West not only be active in the council, but perhaps to assume a role.”

Fisher and eight other nominees are vying for eight seats on the board, whose members each serve a three-year term. Former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and C. Peter McColough, chairman of Xerox Corp., are also nominees.