Wednesday, April 4th, 2007
Remembering Dorian D. Fisher
Dorian Adams, the widow of Antony Fisher, passed away on April 3, 2007
By Alex Chafuen
I met Dorian shortly after my first meeting with Atlas founder Antony Fisher in early September 1985. I know how important it is to have spousal support and insights for those of us who work in this type of “apostleship of freedom.” Therefore, I am sure that Antony consulted with her before opening the doors of Atlas to me. As Antony was the man that my British high-school teachers encouraged me to look on as a model, Dorian was in many ways the model of the perfect complement. She, like Antony, was bright, well-educated in philosophy, and opinionated.
I recall that in editing whatever Antony would show her (almost all the long documents), she would have strong suggestions. Sometimes I saw manuscripts coming back and forth almost endlessly, until both Antony and Dorian were satisfied. More for prudence than political correctness, Dorian would smooth some of Antony’s remarks. When they traveled together, searching for intellectual entrepreneurs, those who belonged to Anglophile cultures would relate better to Antony, but those who were influenced more by the openness and prosperity gospel of America, would relate better with Dorian. Together they began building Atlas.
During Antony’s sickness, Dorian was strong by his side. I think Dorian, who was an agnostic, had asked me to pray for Antony’s health. After one of the last medical tests had come back with bad results, I sent Dorian and Antony a personal letter stressing my belief in everlasting life and the importance of Antony’s legacy. I have prayed for people’s health, but mostly I pray for souls, and there was little I could ask God for Antony’s soul. I knew at the time that God was already in charge of Antony’s soul, and I think I stated that in the letter. Antony seldom spoke about it, but he shared even more confidence in God’s providence than I. That was the first time that I heard her express some sorrow. She trained her character to always look forward, never back.
Dorian was a beautiful person. Those who knew her from before she and I met recall that she was even more stunning in her youth. But as Ev Berg recalls, those who thought she was just another pretty blonde, were in for a surprise. This was a very bright blonde. Dorian was also a perfect host. She had a beautiful apartment overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, which was in the same building as Milton and Rose Friedman. John Blundell recounted Dorian’s friendship with her neighbor, “And of course she helped draw Milton to Atlas. She had such a glorious apartment that when Milton (who lived lower down of course then in a much smaller one) was asked for TV interviews he always called Dorian and asked if they could be done in her lounge."
Dorian often gathered friends for dinner. It was there where I met some great friends of freedom. I recall the first night when Bruce and Giovanna Ames came to Dorian’s apartment. Bruce, then chairman of the biochemistry department at Berkeley, and one of the greatest scientists of these last decades, had recently discovered the contribution of F.A. Hayek to Social Sciences. Since then, the Ames began contributing with their talents not only to scientific discoveries but also to building the freedom movement.
When she entertained, she would hire students from the local school of culinary arts, and dinner was served on a big round crystal table. Everything was perfect, except perhaps the Austrian wine decanter that she insisted on have in the center of the table. The particular wine decanter required some special art to make it work without leaking. It came to be quite useful, however, when one needed a topic to change the direction of a conversation. Antony’s life in the apartment is immortalized in a small way by his paintings depicting the sunsets of the dynamic San Francisco Bay skyline.
After Antony died, Dorian married another great man, the late R. John Adams, and continued to show her generosity. I spent my tenth wedding anniversary in Bermuda and recall that during one of my visits she packed a sandwich lunch and took me to a wonderful beach where we had a picnic. She had all the snorkeling gear ready for her guests, and knowing how much I love deep sea swimming she sat patiently in the coast while I explored the coral reefs.
During Dorian’s sickness she was blessed by having the support and advice of Sam Husbands, and Sam’s long time colleague, Pat Donahue. Several of us who knew her used each trip to San Francisco to visit with her. On several occasions, while she was beginning to lose her memory, friends like John Goodman, Sally Pipes, Tim Browne, John Blundell, Bill Sumner, and others, would have a meal with her. Even when we could not understand what she was thinking, we hoped that her spirit would be connecting with us. One of our good friends, Vida Ribnikar, lives in the same building where Dorian spent her last days, and she kept us informed about her status. Antony and Dorian’s good friends Borut and Nadine Prah introduced us to Mrs. Ribnikar, and those early Fisher friendships continue to be main supporters of Atlas’s work in magnificent Slovenia.
Dorian was a valuable board member of Atlas but decided to step down after one of our few board retreats when she realized that her memory was beginning to fade. I recall that she mentioned two people as ideal candidates to replace her, Linda Fisher Whetstone and Andrea Rich. Linda and later Andrea became and continue to serve as trustees of Atlas.
If Dorian had a dream for Atlas, it would have been more realistic than the first dreams that Antony had. I know what Atlas has achieved as well as the personal qualities of our staff. I think that it would be hard to attract better people that those on our staff and Dorian would be very proud.
The words of Linda summarize Dorian’s gifts to family, friends and the movement:
My memories of her are that she made my father very happy and certainly gave him the happiest years of his life as well as enabling him in part to fulfill his dreams. She seems to have had the capacity to make all her three husbands happy, creating lovely homes for them and always ready to entertain their colleagues and friends. She was the perfect step-mother, fun, positive, generous, searching for ways to get us all together. Always looking wonderful and as you say strong in her views, sometimes very strong.
I remember the first Christmas, of I think 9, she and Dad spent with us. When they arrived we introduced them to the girls who would have been about 10, 12 and 13 and she told them to call her Dorian ‘because that will make us all happy because you will feel older and I will feel younger.’ Next, she showed us the details of a holiday in the Greek Islands on a liner that summer and the berths she had booked as a present to us all, because she knew the girls were all studying Greek and Roman history.
John Blundell recalls other memories of Dorian:
Every day she would cut the newspapers for Antony, hunting out useful stories for him about issues or people or countries. She had a little cocktail ritual at I think 6pm every day where she would sit there with her drink and read the items aloud to him or at least the opening paragraph or two and she would tell him exactly why this item was of interest. It was amazing to be a witness. Of course she knew a lot of relevant people because she had attended MPS meetings in the 1950s and 1960s as Mrs. George Crocker. AGAF had been at some of the same meetings but I recall they had no memory of each other from those days.
Dorian Dodge Adams, also remembered as Dorian D. Crocker and Dorian D. Fisher, shared her gifts in each stage of her life and continues to be a beloved member of the Atlas family. Those of us who value or have dedicated most of our lives to Atlas will remember Linda’s words:
I am quite certain that without Dorian there would have been no Atlas because she was such a support to my father in the last 9 years of his life, making it possible for him to undertake so many of the activities that led to the setting up of Atlas. She very much deserves that her efforts are recorded in the Atlas annals so that those who come after us are aware of the great contribution she made.
Other Comments by Think tank leaders that met Dorian D. Fisher
- John Goodman President NCPA
"Some of you knew her. Most of you did not. All of you were affected by her life. Her late husband, Sir Antony Fisher, started the Institute for Economic Affairs in London (Margaret Thatcher's think tank) and later helped start three dozen think tanks around the world, including the Manhattan Institute in New York, The Fraser Institute in Canada, and the Institute for Liberty and Democracy (Hernando De Soto's organization) in Peru. Along the way Antony founded the Atlas Foundation, which provides seed money to young organizations and holds annual conferences for them.
Dorian was always at Antony's side. She took notes at the conferences and often traveled with him. I remember sitting in a bar at the Dallas Fort Worth Airport with the two of them more than 25 years ago outlining a business plan for the NCPA.
It is hard for young people today to appreciate how bleak things looked and how lonely the effort was when Antony and Dorian set out to change the world. At that time, there probably were only half a dozen books in the entire Library of Congress promoting the political philosophy so many of us share. Today the world is very different. But it is different because of those who blazed a trail for the rest of us to follow. "