Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold issued a statement here today expressing his “deep regret” over Hamilton Fisher’s death, praising him for having displayed in his work for the UN “the qualities of a true international servant. ” “The Secretariat,” said Mr. Hammarskjold, “loses in him an officer who made an important contribution to the work of the United Nations.”
A statement expressing the “sadness of the entire department” at the loss of Mr. Fisher, declaring that his “untimely death took one of the most devoted members of the Secretariat, ” was issued by Assistant secretary-general Benjamin Cohen in charge of the Department of Public Information, to which Mr. Fisher was attached.
Mr. Fisher had been associated with UN work in Palestine since August, 1948, when he was assigned as information officer with the staff of the UN mediator for Palestine, the late Count Folke Bernadotte. He joined the UN staff as a member of the Department of Public Information four months earlier, in April, 1948.
In 1949, he was appointed information officer for the UN Conciliation Commission for Palestine, and in January, 1951, became political affairs officer on the staff of the UNCCP, a position he held until 1952. In June of this year, Mr. Fisher was again assigned as a UN information officer, this time to the UN truce supervision organization with headquarters in Jerusalem.
Born in Vienna, Mr. Fisher graduated from the University of Vienna, and attended the University of Berlin. Prior to his work with the United Nations, he was from 1944 to 1947 senior editor with the United States Office of War Information and other U.S. information agencies. From 1941 to 1944. he was editor for the Australian Associated Press in New York City.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
