Ambassador David J. Fischer
Diplomat-in-Residence
International Relations Department
HSS 133
Tel: (415) 405-0325
examb@sfsu.edu
Ambassador Fischer was appointed a Diplomat-in-Residence in August 1998. A native of Connecticut, he was educated at Brown University and also studied at the University of Vienna and the Harvard Law School. He joined the Foreign Service at the Department of State in 1961 and served in a number of European posts (Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria) before his appointment to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) with the Soviet Union from 1969-1972.
He served in a variety of positions in the State Department involving arms control with the USSR. In 1979 he was appointed the acting American Ambassador to Tanzania and in 1982 as Ambassador to the Seychelles, a small island nation in the Indian Ocean. In 1985 he became the Director for East African affairs in the State Department responsible for US policy in 13 nations of the region ranging from Sudan in the north to Mozambique in the south. From 1987 until 1991 he served as the American Consul-General in Munich, Germany where he witnessed the unification of the Federal Republic.
Following his retirement from government in 1991 he assumed the Presidency of the World Affairs Council of Northern California based in San Francisco. The Council is one of the largest foreign affairs organizations in the United States with over 10,000 members. He is a frequent commentator on international affairs, having appeared on the Lehrer NewsHour and hosting a weekly television program ("Our World This Week") in San Francisco. He continues to write op-ed pieces on foreign affairs and is a frequent commentator on KQED, KRON and other local television channels.
He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pacific Council on International Policy. He has been awarded Germany's highest civilian decoration for his work in US-German relations and in 1997 was awarded the Foreign Policy Association's Medal of Achievement by former Secretary of State George Shultz.
In 1998 he was appointed Diplomat-in-Residence at San Francisco State University where he has taught graduate seminars on the making of US foreign policy, as well as undergraduate courses on Western Europe, the role of intelligence agencies in the formulation of policy, and the structure of the American foreign policy apparatus.
In the Spring 200 semester he will be teaching three courses:
IR 327: Europe, Forming a More Perfect Union
IR 360 Intelligence and Intelligence
Agencies
IR 742 US Foreign Policy: National
Security Decision Making.
