Stanley A. Weiss
Stanley A. Weiss is an American business executive, founder of Business Executives for National Security (BENS), and a writer on international affairs. He has been described as a “self-made man” and a “multi-faceted . . . multi-movied bon vivant.[1]
Stanley A. Weiss | |
|---|---|
| Born | December 21, 1926 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Georgetown University School of Foreign Service Harvard University Center for International Affairs |
| Occupation | Mining Executive; Founding Chairman of Business Executives for National Security (BENS); Philanthropist |
Notable work | Manganese The Other Uses (1977) Being Dead is Bad for Business (2017) |
| Spouse(s) | Lisa (Popper) Weiss (1958 – present) |
| Children | Anthony Weiss Christina Weiss Lurie |
| Website | stanleyweiss |
Inspired by the film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre to search for gold in Mexico in the 1950s, Weiss became a successful entrepreneur in the mining industry before turning to civic engagement as co-founder of the Citizen's Party and founder of BENS.
Under Weiss, BENS successfully advocated closing unnecessary U.S. military bases, reforming Pentagon procurement, passing the Chemical Weapons Convention, and catalyzing President Clinton's historic 2000 visit to India, among other priorities. Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has cited BENS as a “cutting-edge example as to what can be done when the business community becomes involved in supporting our diplomatic and development efforts,” and former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates noted “BENS has identified problems and proposed solutions that have saved the taxpayers billions of dollars and made our military a more effective fighting force.”
Weiss started writing on national security issues in 1983 and has continued to write regularly on a wide range of foreign and domestic issues, including for the International Herald Tribune, The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, and Strategic Affairs. He currently writes on international affairs for the Huffington Post.
His memoir, Being Dead is Bad for Business, was published by Disruption Books in February 2017. He recounts how his “zest for living has taken him from the company of legendary artists and poets in Mexico, to writers and beatniks in 1960s San Francisco and Hollywood; from drunken nights with a notorious spy to friendships with three of the men who played James Bond; from glamorous parties in Gstaad and Phuket to power politics in London and Washington, DC.”
Early life and education
Weiss was born on December 21, 1926 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father worked in local Republican politics.
He joined the U.S. Army in January 1944, shortly after his seventeenth birthday, and was discharged with the rank of Sergeant in August, 1946. Weiss credits President Harry Truman's decision to use the atomic bomb with probably saving his life, as he was training for the U.S. invasion of Japan when the war ended.
He attended Lehigh University, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Pennsylvania Military College and the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. He was also the Business Fellow at Harvard University's Center for International Affairs, now known as the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.
Business success
During his time as a Georgetown student in 1951, Weiss was inspired by the classic John Huston film, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, to search for gold in Mexico.
Weiss, who didn't speak Spanish, had never been to Mexico, and had no experience in the mining business, struggled at first. [vi] Over time, Weiss developed his first key rule of business: Don't Die.
Although he never found gold, he did find rich deposits of manganese ore – often braving dangerous or isolated conditions, to secure new supplies [vii]—and created a successful business. Inc. Magazine described Weiss's 1977 book Manganese: The Other Uses as the “definitive text on the non-metallurgical uses of manganese.”
Following his initial success with manganese, Weiss diversified his businesses and took advantage of promising markets. In 1960, Weiss founded American Minerals, Inc. where he served as chairman until 1991. When the company merged with Premier Refractories, Inc. Weiss served as chairman of the merged entity until 1997. [viii] Along with partners Charley and John Gehret, Weiss also started Premier Magnesia, the largest domestic supplier of magnesia in the United States.[ix] In 2007, Premier Magnesia aligned with Giles Chemical, the largest supplier of Epsom salt; magnesium is a vital component of Epsom salt.
Working with Turkish Armenian American entrepreneur Ara Oztemel, Weiss also played a role in fostering trade between the United States and Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War by cutting a deal to import Soviet chrome into the United States.[x] The Soviet-American Trading Corporation was responsible for up to eighty percent of trade between the United States and the Soviet Union.[xi]
Weiss invested in Harman International Industries before it went public in 1986.[xii] He served on the company's Board of Directors for two decades.
Weiss has also invested in several partnerships and entrepreneurial efforts, including Footprint Ventures – a venture capital fund based in India, run by longtime Silicon Valley venture capitalist Neill Brownstein and his wife, Linda – and Chicken Soup for the Soul Publishing, run by BENS member Bill Rouhana.
BENS and “Being Dead Is Bad for Business”
With the support of John Kenneth Galbraith, the liberal economist and longtime Harvard professor, Weiss became the Business Fellow at Harvard University's Center for International Affairs for the 1977–1978 school year.[xiii]
Based in part on his work on nuclear non-proliferation at Harvard, in 1982, Weiss founded Business Executives for National Security (BENS),[xiv] a non-partisan organization that represents the perspective of business leaders on national security issues, and whose membership includes a number of leading American CEOs, entrepreneurs, and policy analysts.
In a February 2, 1983 interview on the Today show, host Jane Pauley asked Weiss why senior business leaders were raising their voices on issues related to nuclear war.[xv] His reply later became his signature catchphrase: “Being dead is bad for business.”
BENS initially focused largely on arms control and defense procurement. In a series of op-eds, Weiss drew attention to the dangers of nuclear proliferation, and pointed out the Pentagon was operating on outdated assessments of national security needs in justifying inefficient acquisitions and unnecessary bases. The Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Act of 1990, which helped remove pork barrel politics from the base closing process by appointing a U.S. government commission to recommend closures, was based on a concept proposed by a BENS member.[xvi] BENS also played an influential role in the passage of the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program.[xvii]
In 1994, a BENS report that twenty-six of the twenty-seven bases recommended for closure under the BRAC process hadn't actually closed or had reopened with new federal tenants caused a public sensation, helping to get the base closures back on track. Weiss was invited to address the issue on CBS’ 60 Minutes, where he called the actions “political pork at its worst.”[xix]
In 1997, a BENS delegation visit to India led by entrepreneur and humanitarian Raphael Benaroya had a series of meetings with military and political leaders at the highest levels of the Indian government. The meetings encouraged Weiss and several BENS members to advocate for U.S. recognition of India's strategic importance and the need to “de-hyphenate” India and Pakistan and treat them as separate countries. BENS is credited with prompting Bill Clinton's 1997 meeting in New York with Indian Prime Minister I.K. Gujral and Clinton's historic 2000 visit to India – the first presidential visit to India since the Carter administration.
Through Weiss’ leadership, BENS supported the CIA’s In-Q-Tel program, a venture capital firm to develop promising national security technologies for the CIA. He also led efforts to design a public-private partnership called the New Jersey Business Force, which mobilized private corporations in natural disaster recovery efforts. The New Jersey Business Force was active in recovery efforts after Hurricane Sandy.
In 2007, Weiss stepped down as the Chairman of BENS and assumed the title of Founding Chairman. That year, Weiss received the Distinguished Civilian Service Award from the US Department of Defense.
Political advocacy
After his Harvard fellowship, Weiss created and financed the Nuclear Information Resource Service (NIRS). NIRS established its niche by eschewing advocacy in favor of providing reliable, objective information about nuclear power. During the Three Mile Island disaster, NIRS was a key source of accurate information on the situation.[xxiii]
Weiss was a co-founder of the Citizen's Party. Dissatisfied with the Carter administration, the Party emphasized a renewed focus on economic democracy and solving the energy crisis. The Party recruited environmentalist Barry Commoner to run in the 1980 presidential election. Unable to spark sufficient media or public interest, especially given the independent candidacy of John Anderson, the Party infamously put Commoner on the political map with an expletive-centered radio ad.
In 1991, Weiss became involved in a private sector-led, not-for-profit venture to reinvent America's public schools. Created under the umbrella of President George H.W. Bush's “America 2000 Initiative,” the New American Schools Development Corporation sought to create new partnerships between business and government to revolutionize America's schools and bring them up to world-class standards. Over regular meetings supported by the administration, Weiss and other members proposed “break-the-mold” designs for school reform. The ideas gained support within the Bush administration but died due to opposition from the teachers’ unions.
Writing and publishing career
Weiss nearly purchased the iconic magazine, Ramparts, as it faced dire financial troubles in 1968.[xxvi]
Weiss has written op-eds on international affairs and national security issues since 1983. He has written as broadly and consistently on issues related to southeastern Asia and the Asian subcontinent the past 20 years – including Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, India – as any other American writer. Throughout the nineties and 2000s, he was a regular op-ed contributor to the International Herald Tribune. His writing has also appeared in Foreign Affairs, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Washington Times, the Washington Post, UPI, Strategic Review, and the New York Times, among others. He currently writes about international affairs for The Huffington Post.
Key themes in Weiss's writings include the importance of U.S. leadership, how good economics makes good politics, the role of global business in fostering progress, and the problems that result when national borders don't respect historical realities. He describes himself as “not a knee-jerk interventionist, but an internationalist who believes the world is better off when America is out in front.”[xxxiii]
Weiss has described Turkish President Erdogan as a “brilliant fraud” whose actions run counter to Turkey's secular and democratic tradition, called on the United States to reconsider its relationships with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and argued for a change in the U.S. approach to Myanmar.
In 1998, Weiss and then-BENS CEO Tom McInerney published an op-ed on the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. The opening line stated “the United States wants terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden dead – or alive,” presaging by three years President Bush's use of the same formulation after the September 11 terrorist attacks.[xxxvii]
Former Indonesian president Megawati Sukarnoputri, locked in a heated election contest with Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, known as SBY, seized on a Yudhonoyo quote in an International Herald Tribune piece authored by Weiss to argue that Yudhoyono preferred the United States over Indonesia.[xxxviii] Yudhoyono won the election despite Megawati's attacks.
On February 28, 2017, Weiss’ memoir, titled Being Dead is Bad for Business, will be published by Disruption Books
Film and theater production
Weiss was co-producer of Los Novios, the first musical comedy to debut in Mexico. Los Novios was based on The Boy Friend, a hit Broadway production starring Julie Andrews. He was also a producer for a Mexican adaptation of The Bells Are Ringing, titled Ring, Ring, Llame el Amor.
Weiss went on to be the executive producer for The Hired Hand, a 1971 film starring Peter Fonda. He also appeared in the film. Though poorly received at the time, The Hired Hand is now considered a cult western classic and continues to be shown at movie festivals.
Associations
Through his work in business, BENS, and countless life adventures, Weiss became a friend and confidante to many notable people stretching across four continents and nine decades.
In Mexico, Weiss came to know several participants in Mexico's vibrant art world, including Lupe Rivera, the daughter of painters Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.[xliii]
Personal and business connections frequently brought Weiss to 1960s San Francisco as it increasingly became a home for the brewing counterculture movement.[xliv] Weiss maintained close friendships with legendary San Francisco journalists Herb Caen and Art Hoppe. Writers Barnaby Conrad and Herb Gold, advertising pioneers Walter Landor and Howard Gossage, as well as proctologist-turned-ventriloquist Gerry Feigen were among a group of friends who met regularly with Weiss at Trader Vic's. His closest friends were the entrepreneur, Harry Hunt, and attorney Bernard Petrie.
Living part of the year in the Swiss village of Gstaad, Weiss also befriended a colorful cast of characters including Galbraith, conservative icon and National Review founder William F. Buckley, and provocative Spectator columnist Panagiotis Theodoracopulos, better known as Taki. Weiss also developed close friendships in Gstaad with two of the actors who played James Bond – Sean Connery and Roger Moore. He would later befriend a third—Pierce Brosnan – in Phuket, Thailand.[xlv]
In 1971, Weiss and his family moved to London. He is a member of the legendary Garrick Club[xlvi] and the equally iconic Queen's tennis Club.
Weiss received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Point Park College. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Ditchley Foundation, and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Weiss has served on the Board of Visitors at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, the Advisory Board of the RAND Center for Middle East Public Policy, and the Advisory Board of the International Crisis Group.
Personal life
Weiss is married to Lisa Weiss, formerly Lisa Popper. They were married in 1958 and have two children, Christina Weiss Lurie, a part owner of the Philadelphia Eagles, and Anthony Weiss, a business executive.
[i] https://www.amazon.com/Being-Dead-Business-Stanley-Weiss/dp/1633310124/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1479854588&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=being+dead+is+bad+for+business+stanleyweis+s
[ii] https://fas.org/sgp/news/2010/04/gates-export.html
[iii] http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/12/01/clintons_remarks_at_business_executives_for_national_security_gala_99352.html
[iv] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stanley-weiss/hiroshima-saved-my-life_b_10147908.html
[v] https://medium.com/@Stanley.Weiss/wild-and-crazy-in-new-hollywood-1682d10623e6#.fclv6yjrq
[vi] Weiss, Being Dead is Bad for Business, 1-10.
[vii] http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1992-12-07/business/1992342112_1_manganese-weiss-minerals
[viii]https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/800459/000095013303003440/w90098dfdef14a.htm
[ix] Weiss, Being Dead is Bad for Business, 349.
[x] Weiss, Being Dead is Bad for Business, 161–167.
[xi] https://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/09/business/ara-oztemel-71-businessman-cultivated-us-soviet-trade.html
[xii] Weiss, Being Dead is Bad for Business, 251.
[xiii] Weiss, Being Dead is Bad for Business, 280.
[xiv] http://www.bens.org/about-bens/our-mission
[xv] Weiss, Being Dead is Bad for Business, 322.
[xvi] Weiss, Being Dead is Bad for Business, 355.
[xvii] Stanley A. Weiss, “Chemical Weapons: A Valuable Treaty to Ratify,” International Herald Tribune (September 11, 1996)
[xviii] Stanley A. Weiss, “Don't Let The Crisis in Ukraine Damage Decades of Nuclear Cooperation,” The Huffington Post (May 18, 2015)
[xix] Weiss, Being Dead is Bad for Business, 356.
[xx]https://books.google.com/books?id=0TTfBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA337&lpg=PA337&dq=business+executives+for+national+security+india&source=bl&ots=JLvxrZG4bM&sig=QZxsa7Ut2trU2dc5zf9i7ATSXac&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwik5fWbgODQAhUFDcAKHRLJBHwQ6AEIUDAJ#v=onepage&q=business%20executives%20for%20national%20security%20india&f=false
[xxi] http://www.beocalliance.org/nj-business-force
[xxii] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stanley-weiss/hiroshima-saved-my-life_b_10147908.html
[xxiii] Weiss, Being Dead is Bad for Business, 311
[xxiv] http://time.com/4584919/barry-commoner-shocking-ad/
[xxv] http://educationnext.org/unrequited-promise/
[xxvi] Weiss, Being Dead is Bad for Business, 209-221
[xxvii] http://www.inc.com/magazine/19830301/9828.html
[xxviii] https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/28/opinion/28iht-edstan.html
[xxix] https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/burma-myanmar/2014-01-17/how-invest-myanmar
[xxx] http://articles.latimes.com/1993-08-18/local/me-24813_1_united-states
[xxxi] https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/opinion/14iht-edweiss.html
[xxxii] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/stanley-weiss
[xxxiii] Weiss, Being Dead is Bad for Business, 418
[xxxiv] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stanley-weiss/erdogan-turkey-egypt_b_961663.html
[xxxv] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stanley-weiss/its-time-to-talk-about-sa_b_8363936.html
[xxxvi] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stanley-weiss/its-time-to-send-pakistan_b_3347727.html
[xxxvii] Stanley A. Weiss and Tom McInerney, “The Hunt is on For Osama Bin Laden,” The Washington Times, (September 16, 1998)
[xxxviii] Stanley A. Weiss, “Indonesia's Progress Will Continue Despite the Bombing,” International Herald Tribune (Friday, August 8, 2003)
[xxxix] http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1909590,00.html
[xl] https://www.amazon.com/Being-Dead-Business-Stanley-Weiss/dp/1633310124/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1479854588&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=being+dead+is+bad+for+business+stanleyweis+s
[xli] https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0919175/
[xlii] https://medium.com/@Stanley.Weiss/wild-and-crazy-in-new-hollywood-1682d10623e6#.lmwrq6chm
[xliii] Weiss, Being Dead is Bad for Business, 116-117
[xliv] Weiss, Being Dead is Bad for Business, 172-188
[xlv] Weiss, Being Dead is Bad for Business, 265-278
[xlvi] Weiss, Being Dead is Bad for Business, 242
[xlvii] http://www.bens.org/Leadership/StanleyWeiss
[xlviii] http://americanditchley.org/advisory.htm
[xlix] http://www.bens.org/Leadership/StanleyWeiss
[l] http://www.bens.org/Leadership/StanleyWeiss
References
- Weiss, Stanley A. (February 2017). Being Dead is Bad for Business. ISBN 978-1633310124.