Aris Anagnos

Founding Member.
Member of the Board of Directors, VP of Political Affairs

Aris Anagnos was born in Athens, Greece in 1923. In 1941, during the Nazi occupation of Greece, he escaped to the Middle East and joined the exiled Greek army of the Middle East which was fighting on the side of the Allies. After participating in North Africa in desert battles, he joined in a mutiny of the Greek forces which sympathized with the Greek Resistance and demanded a pledge from the Allies that the foreign imposed king would not be returned to Greece before a free plebiscite was held.

Along with most of the Greek soldiers and sailors who had escaped to the Middle East to fight the Nazis, he was interned by the British as a political prisoner until the end of the war.

At the end of the Second World War, he returned to Greece and worked with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Association (UNRRA) in general relief work for war devastated Greece. While working there, he organized a union of the UNNRA Greek employees and was elected its General Secretary.

Aris came to the United States in 1946 as a student and attended the University of California at Los Angeles. He graduated in 1951, obtaining a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration with a major in Finance. After 1951, Anagnos engaged for several years in the insurance business, shifting later to real estate investments and development.

He has been active in many community affairs, principally in the field of human rights, civil rights, equal rights, civil liberties, and the Peace Movement. Aris served on the Board of Directors of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California for over twenty-five years, including a term as President for two years. He is among the founders of the Humanitarian Law Project of the International Education Development Fund, over which he presided for several years. He has been President of the Southern California Americans for Democratic Action.

During the 1967-1974 military dictatorship in Greece, Aris and Carolyn, his wife of many years until her death in 2000, organized a Committee for Democratic Freedoms in Greece, which hosted actress Melina Mercouri and generated support for the various resistance groups.

Upon the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 Aris and Carolyn joined in founding the Save Cyprus Council, later renamed the American Hellenic Council. Aris has served continuously as Vice President and three years as President of the organization making one of his priorities to inform public opinion and legislators about the illegal Turkish invasion of Cyprus and the continuing Turkish military occupation of 37% of the Cyprus Republic in violation of international law.

In 1988 Aris and Carolyn established the Peace Center in Los Angeles, a building where several peace and social justice organizations are housed free of charge. Several others use the building for meetings. Aris and Carolyn were very active in the Peace and Solidarity movement voicing their opposition of the corrupt U.S.-backed regimes in Central America, and in particular in El Salvador.

In January 1989 Aris, Carolyn, and Sister Pat Krommer, at the request of the FMLN of El Salvador, carried to Washington and presented to congressional leaders the secret Peace Proposal which was made public later and became the basis of the Salvadoran Peace Accords of 1992. The FMLN awarded Aris the 25th Anniversary Farabundo Marti Medal. In the summer of 1989, Aris and Carolyn Anagnos donated one million dollars to Nicaragua for humanitarian, educational and relief purposes and for building the Che Guevara Housing Project for amputated and blinded soldiers of the civil war. Aris was awarded the Comandante Enrique Schmitt Medal, the highest Sandinista award for non-Nicaraguans.

Being active in several organizations, Aris recognized early the importance of lobbying the Congress and the US Administration for various causes, for civil rights and civil liberties, against various wars like the Vietnam War, for labor rights, for a national health care system and others. In this process, he became personally acquainted with various members of the House and Senate. Having been successful in business, he was also able to make monetary contributions to various political campaigns, thus gaining the access to politicians who are so heavily dependent on money in th e U.S. political system.