with author daniel schulman talk about the koch brothers. after that, prime minister's questions at the house of commons. and later, the congressional ceremony for israeli president. ♪ this week on q & a our guest is dan daniel. daniel shul man, authors of sons of wichita. >> a lot of people associate the coke brothers.

frederick coke is the oldest and this is really the tale of a historic industrial dynasty. i thought in the 2010, 2011 time frame you see charles coke a caricature of who these guys were. and once i started to peel back the layers of that a little bit look into their family background i said, wow, this is a really politics may be that's the least interesting thing about this family.

in my mind i see them in the mold of the rocker fellers and the carnegies in the sense that their legacy will extend in so many ways beyond our lifetime. >> are they alive? >> yes. >> i want to show the cover of the book and ask you a little bit about each one of the four. an as we look at the book cover we see fred who is 80-year-old born august 6, 1933. what you can say? >> he was the eldest and not interested in the family business. he has been a patron of the arts and he spent a lot of his life rehabilitating a series historic homes around the world including this former wall worth mention and he was kind enough to give me a tour of this home that he doesn't live in. he's got an apartment that he

lives in. this is his private museum where he has all this phenomenal artwork. he also spent a lot of his life collecting what you might all artistic enfemme artistic enfemme ra. henry miller's first manuscript drafts of "tropic of cancer" these sorts of things that are really give you a lot of insight into the artistic process extra lot of these are collected at yale's library. >> you wrote near the end of the book, he lures himself into an arm chair in a second room sitting room. he has not spoken to the press in 25 years since the british descended on him like a pact -- i'll get it here. like a pack of wolves.

even before that he refused all interviews as his younger brothers savaged one another. shall we delve into the coke world he asks. but first a formality. he withdraws a crisp document. it requires all writing pertaining to frederick r. coke including personal subject matter be submitted for his approval. that is you he's talking to. >> yes. >> what was your reaction when that happened? i think my heart stopped for a few moments because this had come after a lengthy -- we had spoken by phone. we had -- had given me a lengthy tour of his home and of course this wasn't something that i was going to be able to sign. essentially what happened was we had a little bit more back and forth and could not come to an arrangement that he was comfortable with.

so that's more or less where our communication stopped although he did respond to my fact checking questions when it came to that part of the process. >> how involved is he in the whole coke world? >> you know, he's kind of always been somewhat on the outskirts of his family. he went to boarding school. all the brothers went to boarding school but he went to one at an early age. he went to hackly in new york and he would come back on school breaks and things like that but he never got involved with the family company. the other three brothers did and so he was a bit of an outlieier and in his father's eyes he was a disappointment. frederick had stolen from his father on a come of occasions including once forging charles's

name on the charge account. >> you quote saying he's gay and then a parenthetical expression you say frederick says he's not. >> right. >> why is that an issue? >> he says he's not gay. people that are close to the family say certainly say differently and it's been reported elsewhere that he is. but i just think frederick should have the last word on that if he says he's not gay then that's what he says about the matter. >> he didn't get any money from his dad? >> he did. he in fact -- two trusts were created for him in the 19 sixties and he ended up with about 14% of coke stock in what would be coke industries. the other brothers shared about 20% stake. each have a 20% stake in the company. but frederick was cutout their

father's will. >> in the end how much money did he get? >> he ended up -- when he ended up selling his shares in the company he got $330 million. >> let's go back to the cover of the book. which one on this cover is charles? >> charles is upper right. >> and he was born in 1935. he's 78 years old and went to m. i.t. >> yeah. charles goes to m. i.t. and gets two advanced degrees including one in nuclear engineering. he is a budding libertarian at this point and decides that working in the nuclear sector means he's going to be under the thumb of government for his career. and he bocks at that notion. he grew up in his father's shadow and always the air apparent and went to work for a consulting firm in boston and really enjoys being out on his own and making his own career and making his own way.

their father in the sixties is sort of poor health and had heart problems and this is something that runs on their side of the family. his mom had died of con gest con gest active heart gest active heart failure. and fred wants to hand over the company to one of his sons -- >> fred is the father. >> and calls charles several times to come home and take a job with the company. charles says no at first and finally basically his dad makes him an offer he can't refuse. he says i'm going to sell the company and start working here. so he does that. and he really makes growing coke industries at the time it was called something else, but after their father dies in 1967, charles renames the company in his honor. and he really makes his full

focus growing this company. you know, today he's grown it so much beyond what his father would even recognize. it's kind of remarkable. >> private company? >> private company. >> how much is he worth? >> recently bloomberg pegged his network at little over $50 billion. but i'll tell you a funny story. as i was getting the man aou script ready to go, i had to revise the network of david and charles coke upwards twice. originally i had it at 36 billion >> together or each? >> each. and then forbes, the forbes list came out of the world's billionaires and they were at 41 billion. as i couldn't make anymore changes in the book, bloomberg estimated their network at 50 billion. >> there was a documentary back in 2012 and here's a little bit of it showing -- we'll listen to charles making a presentation at

one of their donor meetings. >> attendees held twice a year are sworn to secrecy but undercover reportings were leaked to a blog. >> i want to recognize all our great partners, that those partners who have given more than a million over the last 12 months. >> the cokes extheir partners spent at least $40 million in the 2010 u.s. elections helping to shift the balance of power in the house of representatives toward right wing take party republicans. in colorado the wealthy son curve shivs to dig deep for the 2,000 fight against president barack obama. >> this it's a life or death for this country. >> they're radical libertarians and oppose big government and think the free market does better when it's unregulated and

the family's been pretty much in kind of complete opposition to everything that's been done in america in terms of progressivism since the new deal. >> that's jane mayer from new yorker magazine. she's played a role. what is it? >> hers was the first story that sort of uncovered this under the radar family. for a family that was as influential as they were it was remarkable. they were of course known in certain circles, but the extent of their corporate empire and their political empire really wasn't something that was well covered before the 2010 time frame and that's when jane mayer's story and the interesting impact that had. it certainly riled up people in the left, but within the company it also provoked a bit of a backlash certainly against the

media. this is what they viewed as the start of a campaign ofville indication against the company. >> go back to the documentary talking about the secret meeting. the donor group today has. explain what that is. >> it started -- charles and richard fink who is his political consigliere at coke industries started these seminars in the 2003 time frame. at the time these things were so boring that you weren't clamoring to get into them that's for sure. they were really economic seminars and they would start bringing in members of a variety offed a va kasy groups and other libertarian-minded think tanks and high network individuals who

were interested in donating into these entities they would showcase them. they would say if you're interested in such and such give to this. if you're against climate change maybe you should give to oured a va kasy group americans for prosperity. in the obama era this became much more of an organized endeavor where you had them much more closely coordinating where the money was going through coke's political advisors. and also you have these lunch sessions where there's an emcee up there -- a pledge a thon i guess would you call it where all sorts of conservative donor are standing up and saying, i'll give a million dollars to preserve the freedom of this country and that sort of thing. so through this donor network they were funneling money to an

array of different organizations. some pretty closely linked to coke industries, some in sort of an outer ring of that orbit. >> by the way, as we're talking is there anything about this that's illegal? >> no. i think they've been pretty scrupulous about making sure that their activities are within the legal pwoupbtsdz. the one area where things did get dicy and coke industries claims they had nothing to do with this was in california there was an episode that came under investigation and groups were handed record fines for this, but one of the coke's outside political advisors a fell low named sean noble accepted money from a california political entity because of some sort of byzantine finance rules the money went out of state and sean noble was going to route it back into the state and that's where they ran afoul of campaign

finance laws. coke industries say they had nothing to do withthat's where they ran afoul of campaign finance laws. coke industries say they had nothing to do with this and it sounds like they weren't definitively have the link come back to them. >> where would the biggest chunk of where they made their money be. >> one of the biggest things they do is commodities trading. they're the world's third largest commodities trader. they make a huge amount of money from that. they're also big in oil, gas petra chemicals anything that could you imagine that derives from oil. another big piece of their business is they recently -- in 2005 they bought georgia pacific. they have a huge number of consumer brands. brawny paper towels and quilted

northern toilet paper and as well as building products. >> we have seen fred or they call him freddy i guess. the oldest son who is 80 and he lives where most of the time? >> he has an apartment on new york's fifth have a view where he is a certain part of the year but he has a collection of other houses. he has a house near the south of france near monaco and owns the hunting lodge of the arch duke outside of salesberg and he also owns a historic estate in but ler, pennsylvania. >> what is his title and where does he live, charles some >> he's the chairman and ceo of coke industries and he lives in wichita on the same come bound where he grew up. >> and he's 78. let's go back to your cover. now the twins. which one is bill?

>> bill is bottom right corner. >> what you can tell us about him? he's 74 years old. >> he got a ph.d. in engineering in m. i.t. and ends up joining the family company in 1974. bill had always been sort of a gawky teenager and felt awkward and he had some childhood resentments against his brothers bill and especially his -- his brothers david and especially charles. this derived from the fact that charles and david were always quite close and bill sort of felt like the third and lesser wheel. >> he's a twin. >> fraternal twin of david. he felt growing up that charles used to whip up a lot of resentments and hostilities

between the twins and provoke fights between them. indeed when they were growing up they got into some real battles. some of them were so fierce that they had a property for man that used to carry around boxing gloves and would when these guys got into it he would put the boxing gloves on so they wouldn't injury each other. >> where does bill live is and what does he do? >> he lives in palm beach ask created a successful energy company called objection bow. this was after he was outed from the family company after he was tried to take over the board of coke industries. >> does he have any relationship today with his brother david or with his brother charles? >> amazingly he and david were able to bury the hatchet after many years of what has to be one of the most brutal family tpaoudz infeuds in history. >> here's video of bill talking

about his company. >> i'm in a business where we make real money. we have some gas drilling. we buy and resell petroleum which is the carbon waste product from oil refinery and process it and officers -- we do business in 100 different companies and we have 40 different offices our offices in 40 different countries. our sales are about between 3 and 4 billion and our compound annual growth rate since 1984 has been 26% of the year. >> what are his politics? >> you know the interesting thing about bill is he's often can be associated with his brothers politics. he did give quite a bit of money to mitt romney in the 2012 campaign but i wouldn't pigeon hole him an a republican or

libertarian. he once interested running for senate as a democrat in kansas. he's given to democrats and republicans over the years. >> finally david, the twin brother. >> david. >> on the cover where is he? >> okay. david is upper left-hand corner. >> tell us about david. >> david oh oat interesting thing about david is that he was really a gifted athlete. he set records at m. i.t. on the m. i.t. basketball squad that were really only broken in the last -- in recent years. so he also goes to work outside of the family company after graduating from school. he didn't -- he wanted to sort of prove himself and learn in another chemical engineering company. he goes to work for coke industries in 1970 for what was then called coke engineering.

david for many years had sort of a reputation as a bit of a play boy. he didn't get married until well into his fifties. but he has a reputation as a pretty affable social guy and he's been charles's partner in growing this massive company over the past decades. >> he was the candidate for vice president on the libertarian ticket in what year? >> 1980. >> how active is he now in politics? >> in terms of that campaign i certainly think that was -- he looks back on that experience fondly but i don't think you'll ever see him running for high office again n terms of his political activities, he's a prolific donor to a range of conservative causes and is also on the board of directors of the

americans for prosperity foundation. it's theed a va kasy group that they founded. >> here he is in 2009 talking about the american prosperity group and let's watch. >> americans for prosperity is non partisan and and that is essential at the time when the very foundations of our nation are being challenged. in all candor we have seen both political parties come up short and make disastrous mistakes. now more than ever we the strong principal freedom movement to hold both accountable and that's exactly what american for prosperity is doing. >> do you agree with the non partisan label? >> they certainly target democrats more than republicans. you have to say there is a situation right now in detroit where americans for prosperity has come out against a plan to

fund the pension system there to the tune of 195 million and the americans for prosperity is saying if you guys vote for this talking to the republicans and the state legislature, if you vote for this, we're going to target you for defeat. in some instances they do go after republicans and moderates as well. >> how much money have they given to politics in the last 20, 25 years. >> i think that's hard to quantity because it certainly is well into the millions. but a lot doesn't flow to the political system directly. they spend a lot of to influence political culture through a variety of think tanks and educational institutions. a lot of charles's money has gone to money like the cueto institute. it's through this way that

they've sought to influence the political system and not just through the funding of campaigns and in fact in terms of they were said to have spent $400 million on the last election. i'd say a very small percentage of that was probably their money. but what they were able to do was bring together these resources from a variety of contributors and harness a lot of that money and that's why they're so powerful politically. >> your book has a lot of information with the four boys and four men. let's start with fred. has he been married and does he have any children? >> no. fred never married and he has no children. >> what about charles? >> charles is married -- he's been married for decades to a fellow witch continue named liz and they have two kids. >> are they involved in the company? >> charles's son chase is involved in the company.

and he is actually -- he was actually promoted not too long ago to president of i believe it was the company's fertilizer division. and he also i think is on the board of directors in the company. he's being groomed for bigger and better things there. although the topic of succession is always a touchy one and charles never fully answers that question. basically his response is often we have such a great range of leaders within the company, if i'm no longer here there's any number of people that could take over. >> how many times has he been married? >> only once. >> and what about bill? >> bill has i think five children by four different women. he's been married three times. and his kids range in age from i think late twenties to -- i think he has a toddler. >> they're not involved with coke industries? >> no, not at all.

>> what about his twin brother david? >> david has only been married once. his wife's name is julia. she hails from arkansas, i believe and was a former assistant to the fashion designer when he met her. they have three kids and their eldest is in their teens. >> david lives in new york and you say his wife had trouble when they first got married getting along with some of thenew york city. >> david travelled in high circles and his wife was not -- she's -- by all accounts she's a down to earth person and not a society lady. and when you all of a sudden go from having to chair the met gala there's a bit of a learning curve and there is certainly some caddiness at the upper echelon of new york society. she was certainly on the receiving end of that.

there were some nasty anonymous sniping in the gossip pages and things like that and i think she was pretty hurt by that. >> other than fred, did any of the others talk to you? >> no. no. but i was able to talk to a number of people who know them pretty well including very close friends of the brothers, the godfather of david's eldest son. people of that nature. >> did they have to get the approval of the coke brothers for them to do that? >> i think some of them probably called the cokes and said, hey i'm going to talk to this guy, is that okay. others just talked. >> back in 1993, harry reid said this on the floor of the senate -- >> who is this so-called non partisan grassroots group that calls it citizens for a sound economy?

i'd like to point out a few facts about this group. this group has as its top officials a family by the name of coke. these officers, these coke family members are known for their ultra and i stress ultra right wing conservativism and i think even this statement gives conservativisme. a bad name which it doesn't deserve. >> that was 1993. he's been beating this drum a lot longer than i realized i suppose. >> that's the first one we could find. just to jump ahead here, the washington freebee con which is

owned by a foundation the senator for american freedom, has put together a video. you might have seen it that shows mr. reed on the floor of the senate mentioning the coke brothers 134 times. we'll run this for a little bit of this. this is recent that they put this together this year. let's watch. (repeat coke brothers) s coke brothers) "coke brothers) ")

these two brothers are trying to buy america. >> what's going on? >> you know, in terms of why people see harry reid and other democrats running against the coke brothers in these midterm elections is that i think because their advocacy group americans for prosperity have been out there hitting it early and often. and it's having an effect. and i think the democrats see the name coke as a good fundraising tool. they know it rallies the left. and i think that's part of the

strategy on the senator floor when senator reid is denouncing it left and right. i think it's a bit of a dicy strategy when you say things as senator reid has and you call them un-american and things of that nature which i think would rub most people the wrong way. >> here's ted cruz on the floor of the senate having another view of this. >> with the majority leader stood on the floor and said this is all because of the nefarious coke brothers, set aside the impropriety of the majority leader of the united states senate taking two private citizens individual who are engaged in political speech standing up for what they believe. and the majority leader using his position of political power to lamb base them to target. interestingly enough the majority leader does not seem to have a problem with the california billionaire who is publicly pledged to put $1 million behind democrats to press them to pass climate

change legislation that would cost millions of jobs across the country from hard working americans that billionaire in the majorities view is perfectly fine to spend $1 million in the election but the coke brothers because the two of them have expressed their views are subject toville indication and personal attack. >> comment. >> what's interesting to me about all of this is that i have somewhat of a theory that the democrats have helped to build the coke brothers into what they are politically today by demonizing orville demonizing orville anizing them. they really aren't republicans they're libertarians and there is quite a difference between the two philosophies. they've long had an unceasely

relationship with the republican party. now you have the cokes being embraced by a lot of people on the right largely because they have come under such withering attack by the left. >> you delve into all these organizations including the magazine you represent through these connections and drown in all these connections and help us out here. to start with, why aren't people upset about george -- he's not the left. there's an open secret, they have a big piece about the kind of money he spent which is tremendous amount. >> sure. you have a situation right now where speech -- money can equal speech and i think that's a problem on both sides of the aisle where more money you have the more democracy you can buy. in terms of folks like george,

he was extraordinarily politically active in the 2004 election. you haven't seen him as active in recent cycles. the other difference that i see between george and the cokes and people bring this up often and it's a very question is the cokes i think have been a bit more methodical in their efforts to change the political culture and to build a political network. this has been a process that has been going on for 50 years where they've been working at this in order to mainstream some of their libertarian views. >> go paperwork to what-- back to what we saw earlier the secret meeting in colorado. he also owns the examiner newspapers and owns the weekly standard and the washington and

beacon has on its word bill crystal. when we go to your magazine mother jones this are all kinds of connections. did people come after you from the right when you started writing this book because you're associated with mother jones? >> not too much. there was a story -- i'm trying it remember it was in news max and it said something -- >> which is a very conservative magazine. >> yes and it basically new book to target, the coke dynasty brought up my mother jones affiliation and implied this was going to be some sort of an attack. but i think what you see is a lot of the reviews saying this is actually -- people are kind of shocked that this is just a pretty straightforward even handed look at the cokes. and i really wanted this to be a book that both republicans or democrats could read this book and both learn something from it. >> you spend a lot of time on this book not on how they spend

their money but on back ground. when did you decide to do that. >> it went back to early research when i was realizing that like i said i wanted to understand the origins of this family and their ideology, but they also have this really riveting and really dramatic sometimes tragic family drama that took place. i was just interested -- i was just so interested by it >> what did do you if you didn't have the transcripts of coke v coke and tell us what that is. >> coke v.coke is this lawsuit that played out between the four coke brothers, charles and david on one side and bill and frederick and other shareholders of coke industries on the other. and basically what happens is in the late 19 seventies, bill coke is working in the family company with his brothers charles and

david. this was at a time when coke industries comes under straout 90 scrutiny by a number of regulators by the department of energy and then it gets hit by a set of indictments by trying to fix a federal oil lottery. bill and other shareholders, most of them family members are concerned with the direction the company is heading in. bill atributes some of the stuff that is befalling to the company to charles anti-government philosophy. another issue is this is a very closely held private company and charles is really driven to build this company. he's plowing all of their profits back into growing the company and you have bill and other shareholders that have other interests. bill's an extraordinarily wealthy man but only on paper and he wants to buy a home but he has to take out a mortgage for it which he views that as

kind of ridiculous. this culminates in a board room showdown that charles ends up there thwarting. this would have ended up deposing charles as the chairman and they would have taken a greater role in the direction of the company. the end result is bill is tossed out of the company -- >> by his brothers. >> by his brothers. and there's a really dramatic moment in the book where the board has to sit down and decide bill's fate. and david who is really feels like a powerful kinship with his brother of course -- >> twins. >> twins. grew up sharing the same room and they could pinch each other at night that he how close they slept. so he's torn apart between loyalty to his twin and his

older brother who is running the family company. in the end he can't bring himself to vote against bill. the motion carries without him but he's glad he doesn't have to vote against bill because in his mind you're not just voting him out of the company, you're severing him from your life. so what ends up playing out a few years later in 1983 they are able to come to a settlement where charles and david buy out the shareholders for $1.1 billion of which frederick gets 330 million and bill gets 470 million and the rest goes to other family members. a couple of years later bill believes that they've been cheated on how much they received for their shares. they think that the company obscured assets and they actually end up selling the price at a far too low price.

this ignites litigation that goes on for another 15 years and it wasn't just this one lawsuit. there were a number of lawsuits that followed that. bill was -- to say he was obsessed might be under stating it. he went after his brothers with a vengeance. >> where is fred in all this? >> frederick remained on the sidelines at first. their mother was of course devastated. >> mary. >> mary coke she was just devastated by what was taking place between her sons. she felt helpless. she reached out to frederick on a number of occasions and -- she didn't want him getting involved. but eventually his lawyers met with bill's lawyers and he was sufficiently convinced that he

had been essentially defrauded, and he ended up joining this suit. >> you have frederick and bill against charles and david. >> yep. >> when was the trial? when was the big trial if >> the big trial was in 1998. and the out come of this trial is that the jury found that there had been misrepresentations that were made during the negotiations, but these misrepresentations were not material, meaning that frederick and bill would not be entitled to the damages they were seeking. >> in your book, you're right oh,he this is about bill but then he expounded on tkpwraoe he knowses that went back to childhood. his absentee parents and poor self image and bullying of an older brother that instigated fights and every time shoved him roughly to the ground. that's minor things they said about each other. >> oh, yeah.

basically -- what i was getting at there bill was trying to position this as a poorly business dispute but that was impossible because these brothers were trading the mostack contract moanious of charges. at one point charles ause their brother of being mentally unstable and things like. that both sides hired private detectives to dig into each other's personal lives. at one point private eyes working for bill were bribing janitors of trash of the lawyers and things of that. they thought they infiltrated his offices. at one point they actually created a dummy document, left it out in plain sight and according to bill and his lawyers this document eventually surfaces in a legal filing by coke industries basically proving their assertion that

someone had been infiltrating their offices. >> how deeply were the wounds? you say brother bill and david got back together. >> it's hard to imagine that these wounds could go any deeper. in addition to this case, bill was also pursuing a whistle blower case against his brothers alleging that coke industries had stolen oil from federal lands. essentially branding his brothers as criminals, so that cuts pretty deep. amazingly bill and david are able to reforge their relationship. according to family friends part of this had to do with their wives who were both the same age were quite helpful at kind of helping them restore their bond. they both have kids that are the

same age. they own homes that are basically two miles apart in palm beach. owned homes near each other in aspen. they started getting together and it was a very slow process, but they are now consider themselves quite close. >> you have some video on their website we'll just run a little bit of this showing the twins when they were how old? there they are boxing. >> yeah. >> this is pretty vicious here. where did you get this? >> interestingly some of the family's most private moments played out in courtrooms. this was part of a videotape that was entered into evidence in one of the legal cases. this one actually had to do with their mother's will when bill and frederick contested their mother's will. charles and david submitted this to show their mother was in fact

fine mental shape because she narrated parts this have video. this is a small clip of what was acompilation of family footage. but this shows you some of the boxing battles took place. this one was a very good natured one. some apparently weren't as much so. but fred coke their dad was a college boxer and tough guy and taught them how to fight. >> how much was their father in the creation of the society? >> he was present in the room when robert laid out the vision for this group. after that he became one of its national leaders. you know when you drive into wichita in the 19 sixties on the edge of town there was the impeach earl warren billboard

classic and wichita was essentially one of the hot spots of organizing largely thanks to coke. >> he joins the john birch society it was of his dad because he seemed taken by the john birch society. he created one of the goals of the birch society was to create a series of christian science-like reading rooms around the country. they called them american opinion book stores. charles and a family friend started an american opinion bookstore in wichita. i also heard an entertaining story how deep their anti-communism ran in the coke household which is that family friend comes to the door of the house carrying a copy of ernest hemingway's the "sun also rises" and there is a hess tans there

and the charles responds politely, you got to leave the book outside and this is because hemingway, they considered him to be a communist. even that type of literature was not allowed inside the house. >> one of the people back in the back of all your source notes you tell us who you talked to and interviewed, one of the people you interviewed was a name michael oliver. who was he? >> he was an artist in wichita, kansas. he meets mary coke in the 1980s and really becomes her very close companion in her final years of life is spending day and night with her during these times and they travel together and that sort of thing. so that's basically who he is. >> why did he talk to you? >> michael just loved mary to death death, and he -- i think he felt

as if her story could become overshadowed in the broader tale of these, you know, powerful, important guys. he really wanted to talk about, you know, things like -- because mary coke was a really fascinating woman in that she was elegant but also she was a crack shot. she wore fur but it it would also not strange at all to see her in fishing waiters fly fishing in a stream in the hills of kansas or things like that >> when did her husband fred die? >> he died in 1967. >> when did she die? >> 1990. >> how old was she? >> i think she was 83. >> you say that michael at that time was 45. >> yeah, i think he was a couple years younger than david at that point. >> what happened about that

romance in wichita? >> there were certainly a lot of whisper that's he was a gold digger and a gigolo these sorts of things. but these were just two people that by all accounts just enjoyed each other's company and i think the brothers were warry, although she had a lot of younger companions in the years prior to that who would escort her around so perhaps they got a bit used to it. but i think they were weary at first, who is this guy and why is he taking such an interest in our mother. but eventually according to michael, they warmed to him and he and david would play tennis and things of that nature. >> how much control did she have over where the money had before she die stkphd >> her estate was smaller. she didn't -- we're talking a

few million dollars really as opposed to what fred coke had what p what his sons had. we're not talking about a huge amount of money. she put a -- he i should qualify that. not a huge amount of money to guys who already had a massive amount of money. she inserted a clause in her will basically saying if any of my sons are involved in litigation against each other at the time of my death they will be disinherited. she hoped this would carry enough of a sting to end the lawsuit that frederick and bill had been waging against their brothers, about really it it only ignited another round of litigation. >> when you read the transcript from coke v.coke, where did you find it and how long did it take to you read it? >> you know, i was -- i got transcripts and court records from a variety of lawsuits. interestingly, the coke v.coke a

lot of the documents associated with that are stored in a literal salt mine in kansas somewhere. we were able to -- i had a great assistant who was able to help me track them down and then we had to figure out the logistics of getting them transported to a place where they would allow me to look at them. they ended up allowing me to look at them in a courthouse in wichita, kansas. i was all over the country tracking down documents, including -- i found a lot of letters that fred coke had written during his society days at a variety of archives around the country, including the hoover institutions archives. i even got documents from a russian archive showing some of the work that fred work had done in the soviet union in the 19 thirties so i was looking for anything i could get my hands

on. >> there's a quote that i wrote down it's from a man by the name of -- oh goodness, where is it. well >> so that was fred coke's minder when he traveled to the soviet union in the 19 thirties. this was a formative experience because he, a, his work in the soviet union formed the seeds of the family fortune. he had been sue in the u.s. and forced to look for work outside the u.s. and ends up getting a $5 million contract with his partner to modernize refineries throughout the soviet union. when he travel there's to oversee the work an old bolshevik is his minder who takes him around the country. according to fred he tells him

the plans that the communists have to sub srert the united states, things like we're going to make you rotten to the core. when he sees fred off at the train station he basically shakes his fist at him and says to him, i'll see you in the u.s. sooner than you the or something like that. so this is an image that haunts fred. here he is, he's helped to modernize the soviet oil industry which had been decimated at that point, helps to industrialize the soviet union and empower the soviet union and returns home vowing to do everything he can to fight back against this communist menace and you really see that in his work with the john birch society and this forms some of the ideology of his family and sons. >> you were born where? >> i was born in new york city. >> where did you go to college? >> i went to college in boston. i went to emerson.

>> what did you study? >> i studied writing, literature and publishing >> and you got a masters degrees >> colorado colombia. >> my wife was getting a masters where she works. >> what do you do full-time? >> i'm a senior editor at "mother jones." >> i'll wade through a little more research i did on "mother jones" and there is a coke website that's cokefacts.com and a website that david brooks runs. then on "mother jones" who i guess was a socialist -- >> she was a turn of the century labor leader who led campaigns against child labor in mines and things of that nature. >> i want to ask you how you as a journalist stay independent.

it's owned by americans for prosperity the foundation i believe. >> no. the foundation that runs is called the foundation for national progress. >> my mistake. i did see that there's contributions through barbara streisand and david and lucy yell packard fund. there are a lot of politics in all of this. how do you stay independent? >> what's so interesting is that when you're bringing up some of these names saying to myself, streisand funds mother jones? honestly some of this i'm not even aware of. i don't know. there's never been anyone else telling us what we should or shouldn't cover. "mother jones" has a reputation as a fiercely independent muck raking magazine.

>> corn run the washington bureau and -- >> david broke the 47% video which is certainly one of the biggest scoops of what has been a very will yous treeious career and the whole valerie phraeupl >> in your book anybody dis disappointed? >> i've received some in the social media world i've gotten some critiques from the left from people who said we're upset that i essentially humanized them too much but that's what my goal was to do. these guys had become these two-dimensional characters and i wanted to paint a full portrait of who these guys are. there are certain people who believe that they're evil and

matter what and they're entitled to their opinion. but i certainly didn't come away with that notion at all. so, but no. i think the response to the book has been overwhelmingly good, better than i could have expected. >> did you ever get the sense that you were being investigated while were you doing your research? by the coke family? >> no. i got the sense that they were tracking the things that i was doing quite carefully. one thing that i do recall is that i interviewed one of their friends out in wichita and i recorded the interview and i asked if i could record it. this gentleman said sure, but would you give me a copy of the interview. once i returned home i sent him a disk with the interview on it and i followed up a couple of days later to make sure he received it. got his secretary on the line and she said to me, oh, so and so from coke just came by to

pick it up and this was a pause and she just realized she shouldn't have said that to me. but that was the sort of thing. they clearly wanted to know what i was up to. at one point their communications director and general counsel flew out to new york to meet with the editor who is working on my book. they really wanted to be sure that this was going to be a fair-minded account. >> daniel schulman author of sons of wichita. we thank you very much for joining us. >> been my pleasure. for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program visit us at q&a.org. also available as podcasts.