Hamilton Fish III

Hamilton Fish III
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York's 26th district
In office November 2, 1920 – January 3, 1945
Preceded by	Edmund Platt
Succeeded by	Peter A. Quinn
Member of the New York State Assembly from the Putnam district
In office January 1, 1914 – December 31, 1916
Preceded by	John R. Yale
Succeeded by	John P. Donohoe
Personal details
Born	Hamilton Stuyvesant Fish (1888-12-07)December 7, 1888 Garrison, New York, U.S.
Died	January 18, 1991(1991-01-18) (aged 102) Cold Spring, New York, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Other political affiliations	Progressive "Bull Moose" (1912–16)
Spouses	Grace Chapin ​ ​ (m. 1920; died 1960)​ Marie Blackton ​ ​ (m. 1967; died 1974)​ Alice Desmond ​ ​ (m. 1976; div. 1984)​ Lydia Ambrogio ​ (m. 1988)​
Children	Hamilton Fish IV Lillian Veronica Fish Elizabeth Fish
Parent(s)	Hamilton Fish II Emily Mann
Relatives	Fish family
Alma mater	Harvard University (BA)
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Branch/service	United States Army
Years of service	1917–1919 (Army) 1920-1948 (Reserve)
Rank	Major (Army) Colonel (Reserve)
Commands	Company K, 369th Infantry, 93d Division
Battles/wars	World War I Champagne-Marne Meuse-Argonne Defensive Sector
Awards	Silver Star War Cross 1914–1918 (France)
Fish's voice Fish speaks in support of declaring war on Japan Recorded December 8, 1941

Hamilton Fish III (born Hamilton Stuyvesant Fish and also known as Hamilton Fish Jr.; December 7, 1888 – January 18, 1991) was an American soldier, author, and politician from New York. He represented New York's 26th congressional district in the Hudson Valley region in the United States House of Representatives from 1920 to 1945. In the second half of his House career, Fish was a chief critic and opponent of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, especially on matters of international affairs and American entry into World War II prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Born into a political family whose legacy dated to the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam, Fish was educated at St. Mark's School and Harvard College, where he graduated at the age of 20 before enrolling at Harvard Law School. He was elected to the New York State Assembly from Putnam County in 1913 as a member of the Progressive Party. He served three terms before enlisting in World War I, in which he commanded a company of the 369th Infantry Regiment, a unit of African-American soldiers known as the "Harlem Hellfighters." After the war, Fish was elected to the United States House as a Republican. In the House, he advocated for veterans and the anti-lynching movement. He became the body's leading anti-communist as chair of the Fish Committee, a special body established in 1930 to investigate Soviet and communist influence in the United States. He also sponsored the Lodge–Fish Resolution, expressing American support for the British establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.

In 1932, Fish crossed party lines to privately support Hudson Valley native Franklin D. Roosevelt for president, but he soon became a leading critic of Roosevelt's New Deal legislation and Atlanticist foreign policy. Throughout the 1930s, Fish was the subject of multiple foreign influence campaigns, since he was identified by Nazi Party officials as a natural ally to their international ambitions (though he was on the record criticizing the treatment of Jews in Germany) and by British security organizations as an obstacle to American aid for Great Britain. His chief of staff, George Hill, was convicted of perjury in relation to his involvement with George Sylvester Viereck, and agents of the British Security Co-ordination office repeatedly raised money for Fish's opponents and published anti-Fish leaflets in his district. In 1941, Fish was implicated in an America First Committee franking controversy leading to William Power Maloney's grand jury investigating Nazi penetration in the United States.^[1]

After the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and German declaration of war, Fish called for unified support for Roosevelt as a wartime president. He delivered the first speech calling for a declaration of war against Japan and sought to re-enlist but was denied a commission by Roosevelt; he later returned to his criticism, arguing that Roosevelt should have prevented the Japanese strike. Like many leading isolationists, Fish's popularity waned during wartime, and he was defeated for re-election in 1944. Late in the decade, former United States Department of Justice prosecutor O. John Rogge accused Fish of Nazi sympathies.^[2] He continued to actively comment on American diplomacy and military strategy during and after the Cold War, criticizing the United Nations, John Foster Dulles, and the Vietnam War while supporting NATO, the American invasions of Grenada and Panama, and the Gulf War.