The Interests Shared by the Oregon Militia Movement, Koch Brothers and LDS Church
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NOOR: And I wanted to also ask you how this movement ties in with the John Birch Society, the Koch brothers, and other large agribusiness powers in that area.
ZINDA: As I suggested in my piece, there's a long connection between Fred Koch and the LDS church. For example, Fred Koch was a founding member of the John Birch Society.
NOOR: And Fred Koch is the father of the Koch brother--the infamous Koch brothers.
ZINDA: That's correct. And former prophet Ezra Taft Benson, prophet of the LDS church, was also instrumental in creating the John Birch Society, and even served as Eisenhower's secretary of the Department of Agriculture at the time. And there was a split, even in the '50s, in the John Birch Society, within the LDS church where the LDS formally admonished Ezra Taft Benson and others who were promoting the JBS and their influence in the LDS church, and vice versa.
But if you flash forward to today, the John Birch Society four years ago had a split within it that--essentially it was an LDS-non LDS split, where a fellow by the name of John Fatheringham created a splinter group that carried forward with these John Birch Society kinds of ideas. And Mr. Fatheringham is LDS. So to this day, currently, the Koch foundation of course is interested in public lands because they wish to extract anything they can from it. They fund the American Legislative Exchange Council, through the Donors Trust, which in turn funds groups like the American Lands Council that is headed by another LDS fellow by the name of Ken Ivory. And in turn the American Lands Council is used as a platform for Utah state legislators and congressional members to forward anti-public lands legislation and return states--public lands to states.
On the flipside, the LDS church has substantial business interests in public lands. People need to understand the LDS church has a public and a private aspect to their operations. The private not-for-profit aspect is related to their church functions, and they've got a business aspect to them that is one of the largest corporations in the world. And because they are considered private they do not need to disclose financial statements. Bloomberg did a piece in 2012 that did a very good job at tying together the LDS moneyed interests, but suffice it to say they are the largest cattle operation in the United States. They hold agricultural interests throughout the West.
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