Sons of Wichita: How the Koch Brothers Became America’s Most Powerful and Private Dynasty aims to change that. Written by Mother Jones senior editor Daniel Schulman, the biography, set to be released Tuesday, draws on hundreds of interviews with Koch family and friends, as well as thousands of pages of legal documents. The Huffington Post received a copy of the book on Friday.
Schulman examines the roots of Charles and David Koch's libertarian worldview through the lens of their family, including the formative relationship that all four Koch brothers had with their father, the cold, ambitious Fred Koch. Schulman also traces the bitter and litigious history of Charles and David Koch's relationships with their lesser-known brothers: Frederick, the eldest, and Bill, David’s twin brother.
At the center of the saga is patriarch Fred Koch, a staunch anti-communist who drilled his political ideology into his sons from a young age. In 1938, then sympathetic to the fascist regimes ruling Germany, Italy and Japan, Fred wrote that he hoped one day the United States would resemble these nations, which had "overcome" the vices of "idleness, feeding at the public trough, [and] dependence on government."
Elsewhere, Fred warned of a future "vicious race war" in which communists would pit black Americans against white. "The colored man looms large in the Communist plan to take over America," he wrote.
In private, Fred Koch "ruled the house with an iron fist” and faith in social Darwinism. Schulman recounts how the former boxer encouraged his sons to fight each other, sometimes with horrifying results. "During one bout, Bill bashed his twin over the head with a polo mallet," Schulman writes. And "David still bears a scar from the time Bill pierced him in the back with a ceremonial sword." Those early lessons left a deep imprint on the brothers.
Frederick, the oldest, was an outsider in the rough-and-tumble boys club of the Koch house. "Freddie was a sophisticate, a man of the world, in addition to the fact that he was gay, [which] wasn't easily accepted in those days," said a family friend.
Instead, it was Charles, the middle child, who became the vehicle for his father’s ambitions. According to a friend, the father worried that he had been "too kind to Freddie, and that's why he turned out to be so effeminate. When Charles came along, the old man wasn't going to make that mistake. So he was really, really tough on Charles."
The result was a serious, extremely disciplined man, who along with his younger brother David, would transform their father's medium-sized oil refining business, Koch Industries, into one of the largest privately held corporations in the world. But their success came at a high price.
Schulman describes how Charles, unable to convince brother Frederick to sell his stake in Koch Industries, allegedly resorted to "a homosexual blackmail attempt to force Frederick to sell his shares." And when the youngest twin, Bill, launched a bid to wrest control of Koch Industries from his older brothers, Charles' legal team responded by releasing a dossier of opposition research on Bill, filled with sordid details of his personal life.
In 2000, Bill's then-wife Angela, the mother of two of his children, called the police to accuse Bill of punching her in the stomach and threatening "to beat his whole family to death with his belt." Bill was charged with domestic assault and threatening to commit murder. Angela later recanted parts of her account, shortly before receiving a divorce settlement worth $16 million.
Nonetheless, Bill spent decades waging vicious legal battles against Charles and David, which cost the family tens of millions of dollars. Much of the book revolves around Bill's failed attempts to gain control of Koch Industries.
As Schulman recounts, Bill hired private investigators to bug his brothers' offices and pick through the garbage cans at their homes. He planted false memos aimed at rooting out spies in his own company, Oxbow, who he suspected were secretly working for his brothers.
While Bill's anger may have been rooted in childhood rivalries, according to Schulman, it was exacerbated by Charles' ultra-libertarian business philosophy, which Bill considered bad for business. Schulman describes how Charles, and by extension Koch Industries, regularly ignored environmental regulations on principle, believing them to be a hallmark of "Big Brother" government.
After losing a string of huge regulatory battles in the 1990s and paying heavy fines, Charles softened his stance somewhat. Still, the company remains a libertarian venture to this day. Schulman writes that Charles believes the role of government should be "only to keep a check on those who might attempt to interfere with the laws of supply and demand."
Charles still lives in their hometown of Wichita, Kansas, with his wife, Liz, and generally avoids drawing attention to himself or his family.
By comparison, his brothers can seem like dilettantes, despite Schulman's exceptionally fair treatment.
As a bachelor, David was known for hosting hundreds of people at champagne-soaked, all-night parties at his homes in Aspen, Colorado, and Southampton, New York. He once boasted that at least a third of his guests were "beautiful, wild, single women." A guest told Schulman, "A lot of the crowd were these L.A. chicks who had just bought a new pair of tits and wanted to make sure that they did not go unnoticed -- those parties got pretty wild."
In 1996, Bill went to court to evict his former girlfriend from the Boston apartment he had set her up in. Included in the court records were faxes the couple exchanged, some of them sexually explicit. One of the notes was signed "Hot Love From Your X-Rated Protestant Princess." In another, the woman described herself as "a wet orchid," writing, "every inch of my body misses you." Bill succeeded in having her evicted.
For his part, Frederick lives an intensely private life and apparently has little contact with his three brothers. He maintains a collection of historic houses around the world, as well as smaller homes in which he actually lives. The historic houses, which Frederick fills with priceless art, essentially serve as his own private museums.
Original Article
Source: huffingtonpost.com/
Author: Christina Wilkie
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