• President of the International Peace Bureau
• President of the Hague Appeal for Peace
• Representative of Peace Action Network
• Financier and Board member of the Institute for Policy Studies
• During the Vietnam War, Weiss attempted to coerce the families of American POWs to make pro-communist propaganda by promising them contact with their loved ones in Hanoi.
• Directed the Disarmament Program at New York's Riverside Church in New York City

Cora Weiss is an activist who has devoted her adult life to the anti-war, civil rights, and feminist movements. She has served as President of the Samuel Rubin Foundation (named for her father, the Faberge millionaire, secret Communist Party USA member, and identified Comintern agent) since its inception in 1959. Through her work with this foundation, Weiss is a key figure in the Peace and Security Funders Group.

Weiss is an international representative of Peace Action Network, America’s largest anti-nuclear organization. She is also President of the Hague Appeal for Peace, an international network of peace and justice organizations that believe it is possible to permanently abolish war.

Weiss is a principal financier and Board member of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), which was founded with a 1963 grant from the Rubin Foundation. Among her fellow IPS board members are entertainer Harry Belafonte, Democratic Socialists of America vice-chair Barbara Ehrenreich, and The Nation magazine editor Katrina vanden Heuvel.

During the Vietnam War, Weiss was a leader of Women Strike for Peace (WSP), an organization which, according to a congressional study, “enjoyed the complete support of the Communist Party.”

Also during the war, Weiss was infamous for her role in the psychological warfare conducted against U.S. prisoners-of-war held in the so-called “Hanoi Hilton.” She made one trip to Hanoi by invitation and returned to the U.S. with two American POWs; at a subsequent press conference, she described Hanoi’s jails as “immaculate” and reported that American prisoners were being well fed and cared for. When the two POWs with whom she had returned later contradicted her portrayal of North Vietnamese prison conditions, she replied that one of the two was a “war criminal.”

Weiss made it plain that she knew the names of many American POWs. As co-director (with David Dellinger) of the Committee for Liaison with the Families (of POWs), she attempted to coerce relatives of those captives to intone pro-communist propaganda by promising them, in return, the possibility of making contact with -- or even winning the release of -- their loved ones in Hanoi. None of the families accepted that arrangement. After the war, Weiss worked to have Vietnam admitted to the United Nations; she later served as Chairwoman of the committee celebrating Vietnam’s ultimate admission.

Also in the aftermath of the war, Weiss condemned the refugees who fled the brutal Communists who had stormed South Vietnam. On May 29, 1978, the Washington Post quoted Weiss saying: "Every country is entitled to its people. The people are a basic resource that belongs to the country."

During the 1980s, Weiss directed the Disarmament Program at New York's Riverside Church. (She had been invited there in 1978 by the Reverend William Sloane Coffin to run the church’s Disarmament Program, which actively supported the Soviet-backed nuclear freeze program that would have consolidated Soviet nuclear superiority in Europe.) Weiss helped organize a 1982 disarmament rally in New York City, purportedly the largest ever; representatives of many communist organizations participated.

During Weiss' decade-long tenure at Riverside, the church openly advocated for the Communist regime in North Vietnam and the Marxist revolutions that were occurring in Africa and Central America. By contrast, Riverside protested America's deployment of Pershing missiles in Europe and the U.S. initiation of the 1991 Gulf War.

In 1983 Weiss was a delegate to an American-Soviet disarmament conference sponsored by the Institute for Policy Studies. Delegates also included members of the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches, both of which were closely affiliated with Riverside Church.

In 1996 Weiss was a signatory to a statement titled, “A Call for Action on the UN Financial Crisis,” which declared: “The UN faces collapse because many member states have not paid their full dues assessments, owed as a treaty obligation.... This would be a terrible setback in efforts towards peace, human rights and social well-being for all peoples.” The statement called for the U.S. to pay the United Nations more than $1 billion, noting that “the world’s richest country, host to UN headquarters, is pushing the UN to the brink of disaster.” Other signers included Ted Turner, Richard Falk, and David Cortright.

Eight days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Weiss lent her name to a Statement titled “Justice not Vengeance,” which said that "a military response [by America] would not end the terror" but rather "would spark a cycle of escalating violence," and that bringing the perptrators "to justice under the rule of law -- not military action -- is the way to end the violence." Other notable signatories included Harry Belafonte, John Cavanagh, Medea Benjamin, Barbara Ehrenreich, Mike Farrell, Margaret Gage, Danny Glover, Randy Hayes, Michael Klare, Michael Lerner, Bonnie Raitt, Michael Ratner, Edward Said, Martin Sheen, Gloria Steinem, and Ossie Davis.

From 2000 to 2006, Weiss served as President of the International Peace Bureau (IPB). The oldest anti-war federation in the United States, IPB works to “serve the cause of peace by the promotion of international cooperation and nonviolent solution of international conflicts.” In 2002 IPB bestowed its annual Sean MacBride Prize to Congresswoman Barbara Lee of California, to honor Lee for having questioned the merits of American military action in Afghanistan.

Blending her anti-war activism with environmental pursuits, Weiss says: “War is waste and waste is the greatest environmental crime.” In 2003 Weiss was a signatory to a letter titled “Global Warming: An Interfaith Call for Repentance and Renewal,” which specifically blamed the U.S. for the proliferation of global greenhouse emissions and advocated the creation of “a sustainable economy” that might help to heal “earth’s wounds.” Other signers included William Sloane Coffin, Jr., Robert Edgar, and Ingrid Mattson.

Addressing the UN Department on Disarmament Affairs in 2006, Weiss rationalized North Korea’s ongoing quest to develop nuclear weapons as a development no more alarming than the fact that the United States possessed such weapons:

“The outrageous demonstration of nuclear weapon capability by North Korea may be explained by psychiatrists as a very dangerous and expensive attention getting device. No more dangerous than India and Pakistan’s show of force. And clearly no more dangerous than the refusal to abide by international law of the initial five nuclear weapon states who have agreed, under Article 6 of the NPT [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty], to eliminate their nuclear weapons.” 

Over the years, Weiss has donated money to the campaigns of numerous political candidates, all of them Democrats and Independents. Among the more notable recipients were Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Kerry, Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader, Tom Harkin, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Maxine Waters, and Jesse Jackson.

In February 2008, Weiss was a signatory to a letter endorsing Barack Obama for President. "[I]t is noteworthy," said the letter, "that at a time when this position was politically unpopular and when he was aiming for national office, Barack Obama opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq and has spoken out against the war ever since. This puts him in a far better position to articulate a clear challenge to a Republican opponent.”

Weiss’ husband, Peter, is Chairman of the Institute for Policy Studies' Board of Trustees. He is also a member of the National Lawyers Guild, the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, and the Center for Constitutional Rights.


Portions of this profile were adapted from the article "Red Queen of 'Peace,'" written by Michael Tremoglie and published by FrontPageMag.com on December 11, 2002.