Robert Light Fisher was born in York, Pennsylvania, in 1910. He received his teaching credential from Western Washington Normal School, Bellingham, Washington, where his father, Charles Henry Fisher, had been president, and went on to receive degrees from Stanford and Columbia in political science. Fisher joined the State Department in 1940 and worked in the U.S. Army's Intelligence Section during World War II. After the war, he served as the Army's liaison for displaced persons in Europe. Fisher joined the United Nations' Commission for Displaced Arabs in the Middle East in the late 1940s and in 1950 was appointed its chair. In 1953 he became assistant director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in Jordan, and in 1958 he was appointed director of the UNRWA in Gaza. In 1961 Fisher became director of UNRWA affairs in Jordon. He supervised the establishment of refugee camps and the building of schools and health centers. Fisher obtained a senior post at UNRWA headquarters in Beirut in 1968 and returned to the State Department in 1970. Upon his retirement in 1980, Fisher returned to the state of Washington, where he died in 1989.
From the guide to the Robert L. Fisher papers, 1951-1989, 1956-1971, (University of Washington Libraries Special Collections)
