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‘Being dead is bad for business’

The paradox in the United States that Stanley Weiss loves to underline could be cited in most countries, with a minor amendment to the figur...

The paradox in the United States that Stanley Weiss loves to underline could be cited in most countries, with a minor amendment to the figure quoted. Internal security is becoming an increasingly urgent priority in America, homeland security has become a key mantra for the Bush administration, but 90% of the assets in the country are privately owned.

Can government alone undertake the responsibility of protecting its citizens? Two decades ago, Weiss — who currently also writes articles on public policy for The International Herald Tribune newspaper — set up an organisation, Business Executives for National Security (BENS), to provide a business-government interface. He spoke to Mini Kapoor.

Business community and national security. Why should they interface?

I had been in the mining business my whole professional life when, 20 years ago, I wrote a book that led to spending a year at the Centre for International Affairs at Harvard.

During that period I began to think about other spheres, including national security — that it was everybody’s business. It shouldn’t be left just to the professional soldiers or the so-called experts. It led me to an idea, maybe the business community could help in issues of national security.

I decided I was not going to appeal to defence contractors or anyone who had a business stake. And we would not accept government money. So in 1982 I started BENS.

What are some of the initiatives BENS has undertaken?

One came very naturally to a business group: how do you spend defence and other budgets without waste and abuse? The other was about the danger of nuclear holocaust.

In fact, the first question I was asked when we went public was, why’s a business group involved in the nuclear issue? And my natural answer was, being dead is bad for business — and it became a sort of throwaway line.

Incidentally four years ago Sandy Berger, who was the US national security advisor, said, Stanley Weiss always says, being dead is bad for business. But that’s not entirely true, think of Elvis Presley!

In those days they had something called the Hot Line, which was nothing but a telex exchange in Moscow and Washington. We, working together with Senator Nunn, set up a nuclear crisis control centre.

We were worked on the chemical weapons convention, in spite of the fact that it was the chemical manufacturers’ association that represented 90% of chemical makers. We got Colin Powell, Schwarzkopf and the Senate majority leader involved.

Today, we have become more relevant than ever. About 90% of the assets in America are privately owned, and the government really can’t protect them, or doesn’t know how to. We’re forming partnerships between business and government in order to make things more efficient, hopefully to prevent (a tragedy) but if some tragedy occurs, to react.

What are some of the ways in which the business community could become more involved in homeland security?

For instance, the government has enormous stockpiles of certain antitoxins. So they distribute it to each of the state capitals, who distribute it to their cities and towns, and the towns and the cities to the hospitals.

Well, if there’s a major mess, Federal Express knows how to do that. (courier services) who are part members of the organisation know how to make just-in-time deliveries. The whole supply chain and management, which the government is very bad at, business is very good at.

But the most important thing this organisation has ever done is that we’re using the state of New Jersey as a model. We’re going to kick off this programme mid-February. The mayors, and the police people, the fire people, the hospital people, the pharmacies, the business people, and so forth… they don’t even know one another. We’re going to spend the next year trying four or five ideas, and see how it works in this state. If it works, then other states can replicate it.

And tracking terrorist money?

There’s something called a suspicious activity report. What is required by law now is that banks and other institutions are supposed to report anything suspicious.

We started a programme around the country to bring people in the financial community together with people in the FBI and other intelligence agencies so they get to know one another. Now we have expanded, to even include pawn shops. It’s very imperfect, but…

It’s argued that 9/11 has ushered in another era of big government. How does business react to that?

Many of us had different views whether we needed another mammoth bureaucracy called the Office of Homeland Security. But the fact is that these people need us. In fact, the big corporations in America were just as bad, but they learnt when the Japanese and others ran around us to break it up into smaller units.

I think we have a pretty good effect on these bureaucracies. There’s a tug of war (between business and government) but when you’re at war you tend to be a little more flexible — than when everything is okay and you are having turf battles.