Act Now to Stop War and End Racism
(acronym: ANSWER) was the first and
largest group organized after 9/11 to op-
pose Bush Administration anti-terrorism
policies. A 501(c)(3) nonprofit, ANSWER
was the primary sponsor of mass marches
against the war in Iraq held in Washing-
ton, D.C. on April 12, 2003.
The Washington protest was coordi-
nated with anti-war actions in the capital
cities of more than 60 nations. ANSWER
and its affiliate, ANSWER International,
helped organize a coalition support net-
work of hundreds of U.S. and overseas
groups. More than 25,000 protestors con-
verged at Freedom Plaza, just blocks from
the U.S. Capitol, to loudly denounce the
war. (Large numbers came from Wiscon-
sin, New York, Michigan, California and
Northern Virginia.) Later, they marched
past several corporate offices, targeting
companies that allegedly stood to profit
from the war. For instance, they went to
the offices of the Halliburton corporation,
the energy firm once headed by Vice Presi-
dent Cheney, shouting Halliburton War
Criminals! Other throngs of ANSWER
protestors stood outside the Justice De-
partment building shouting Get the hell
out of Iraq! In addition to profanity-laden
chants, marchers carried signs with such
statements as Money for Jobs, Not for
Empire. Scuffles with police broke out,
but there were few arrests.
Other anti-war groups aided the AN-
SWER protest by inviting their members to
join the Washington crowd. They included
Not in Our Name, the National Lawyers
Guild and Black Voices for Peace.
ANSWER has a startling background.
The organization propping it up is a Cold
War communist relic called the Workers
World Party (WWP). WWP split from the
Socialist Workers Party in 1959 over the
Soviet invasion of Hungary three years
earlier. The Socialist Workers opposed the
invasion, as did other communist fronts,
but the WWP remained faithful to the So-
viet cause. WWP also supported the 1968
Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, the
Viet Cong and North Vietnam, and the
communist governments of Cuba and
North Korea.
ANSWERs links to the WWP are
hardly hidden and lie just beneath the
surface. It is a reincarnation of the old
Communist Popular Front, which played
a prominent role in the peace and unilateral
disarmament movements in the 1930s and
later during the Cold War, and whose own
roots are in the Communist International.
ANSWERs Steering Committee is
comprised of the most radical Marxist or-
ganizations in the U.S. The most influen-
tial is the International Action Center (IAC),
a WWP front formed in 1991 by former U.S.
Attorney General Ramsey Clark, a leading
ANSWER operative. Other key WWP op-
eratives hold critical positions in Clarks
IAC, including Sarah Flounders (coordi-
nator), Brian Becker (national co-director),
Sarah Sloan (youth coordinator), and
Gloria La Riva (a correspondent for Work-
ers World, WWPs weekly newspaper).
IAC and ANSWER share office space in
New York City (39 W. 14th Street), and
both groups shared a website for the April
12th, 2003 war protest demonstrations.
Beside IAC, ANSWERs Steering
Committee includes other radical groups
with no previous interest in Iraq or, for that
matter, the peace movement. For example,
the Korean Truth Commission (KTC) is a
long-time staunch supporter of North
Korea. It is little more than a North Korean
front organization that over the years has
sent eight separate delegations (including
IAC members Ramsey Clark, Sarah Floun-
ders and Brian Becker) to Pyongyang to
uncover evidence of U.S. war crimes.
The visits culminated in an International
War Crimes Trial of the United States in
Pyongyang. Clark was Prosecutor,
Flounders was Tribunal co-chair, and
Becker Tribunal sponsor.
Pastors for Peace (PFP), a pro-Castro
organization, is also on the ANSWER
Steering Committee. PFP is partially funded
by the Arca Foundation, a private founda-
tion (2001 assets $68 million, grants $3
million) that has given it more than $100,000
during the 1990s. Arca was founded in
1952 by North Carolina tobacco heiress
Nancy Reynolds Bagley; its president is
Washington, D.C. socialite-activist Smith
Bagley, who hosted young Elian Gonzalez
at his Georgetown home following Elians
forced seizure by federal agents. Using
Arca funds, PFP has managed to ship hu-