For nearly four decades, Koch Industries has spent its time quashing the labor movement, besieging the environment, and stealing oil from the Osage Indians in Oklahoma. But in June, The Boston Globe reported that Charles Koch is teaming up with liberal-donor stalwart George Soros to fund a new antiwar think tank, the Quincy Institute, due to open in September. Has this latter-day John D. Rockefeller found his inner peacenik? Charles's biography may hold some clues. He's widely considered the brains behind the family business that he took over from his father, Fred, a founding member of the John Birch Society and one of the few American industrialists who openly admired Hitler. In 1983, together with his brother David, who's now reportedly in poor health, Charles bought out the other two siblings-Frederick, a philanthropist, and Bill, a collector of luxe art and other billionaire baubles, such as bottles of wine that he was told once belonged to Thomas Jefferson. Under Charles, the company expanded from oil refineries into lumber, coal, chemicals, Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, and more. He's now worth an estimated $54 billion.
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