Circle 040: Roger Fisher, International Relations & Negotiations

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This evening's discussion leader is Roger Fisher, Williston Professor of Law at Harvard University. A member of the Harvard Law School faculty since 1958, Prof. Fisher is known as much for his work outside the classroom as within. As the director of the Harvard Negotiation Project, he leads a team of some of the world's most skillful negotiators and mediators. In the process, he has acquired an international reputation for finding ways to conclude non-violent agreements in situations that appeared to make violence inevitable.

This science of conflict resolution, needed now more than ever in our nuclear age, is outlined in the book Prof. Fisher coauthored with William Ury. Indeed, the best-seller "Getting To Yes" has become the standard text for the increasing number of specialists in the evolving science of negotiation: the process of finding a common ground for parties who initially appear to be at opposite poles.

A graduate of Harvard Law School ('48), Prof. Fisher served in the U.S. Air Force in WW II, and, after the war, assisted the Averell Harriman team that drew up the Marshall Plan.

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