This white paper was issued by the Libertarian Party in 1980 as part of the Ed Clark for President campaign. David Koch was underwriting that presidential campaign as Clark’s running mate.

The paper was written and edited by men with close ties to Charles Koch’s CATO Institute: Ed Crane, who was working on the campaign, was the lead staffer of CATO, and was on its Board of Directors; David Boaz, who was also a leader at CATO and also on the campaign staff; and Earl Ravenal, who was on CATO’s small Board of Directors with Charles Koch and who was a Senior Fellow at CATO, among others. Professor Ravenal chaired the campaign’s task force on these issues and continued to advance them through CATO for many years. He passed away in August 2019.

One of the main positions in this Koch-funded white paper was that the U.S. should not be spending money on NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. That was an outlier position in 1980 and remains so in 2019. The paper also offers views on other geopolitical issues, including the Persian Gulf (where Koch Industries has had long-standing investments), the Middle East, China, Japan, and more.

Since almost its beginning the corporation that is now known as Koch Industries has had international contracts for its oil refining and related businesses. Jane Mayer detailed some of those ties in her book Dark Money, specifically uncovering that Fred Koch helped build a major refinery for Hitler’s Nazi Germany.

Here are a few excerpts:

 “One of the first orders of business is to let energy flow on its own terms – to get politics and strategy… out of the regulation of energy supplies, abroad and at home.”

“One of the first orders of business is to let energy flow on its own terms – to get politics and strategy… out of the regulation of energy supplies, abroad and at home.”