Blundell Bkup

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backup koch tag rolled to blundell

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desmog, see bate

<div class="views-field views-field-title" style=" margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; text-transform: uppercase; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Verdana, 'Helvetica Neue', helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: 0.389999985694885px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://www.desmog.uk/2015/01/17/time-tobacco-tycoon-halved-funding-think-tank-who-dared-fire-his-chosen-boss" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(216, 27, 34); text-decoration: none;">THAT TIME A TOBACCO TYCOON HALVED FUNDING TO A THINK TANK THAT DARED FIRE HIS CHOSEN BOSS</a></div>

DeSmog UK’s epic history series recounts the moment when John Blundell was recruited into Antony Fisher’s free-market think tank, the Institute of Economic Affairs....

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John Blundell is the Director General of the London-based <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Institute_of_Economic_Affairs" title="Institute of Economic Affairs">Institute of Economic Affairs</a> and Vice President of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Mont_Pelerin_Society" title="Mont Pelerin Society">Mont Pelerin Society</a>.

He was educated at King's School, Macclesfield, and at the London School of Economics from 1971 to 1974.

His roles have included:

<ul>

<li>founder, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Carl_Menger_Society&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Carl Menger Society (page does not exist)">Carl Menger Society</a> for the stuody of Austrian and economic ideas (1975)</li>

<li>heading the Press, Research and Parliamentary Liaison Office at the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Federation_of_Small_Businesses&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Federation of Small Businesses (page does not exist)">Federation of Small Businesses</a> from 1977 to 1982, and was a Lambeth Borough councillor from 1978 to 1982</li>

<li>From 1982 to 1993 he lived in the US where he was, inter alia, president of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Institute_for_Humane_Studies" title="Institute for Humane Studies">Institute for Humane Studies</a> (1988-91);</li>

<li>president of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Atlas_Economic_Research_Foundation" title="Atlas Economic Research Foundation">Atlas Economic Research Foundation</a> (1987-91);</li>

<li>president of the board of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Congressional_Schools_of_Virginia&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Congressional Schools of Virginia (page does not exist)">Congressional Schools of Virginia</a> (1988-92);</li>

<li>president of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Charles_G.Koch" title="Charles G. Koch">Charles G. Koch</a> and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Claude_R.Lambe&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Claude R. Lambe (page does not exist)">Claude R. Lambe</a> Charitable Foundations (1991-2)</li>

<li>He assumed his duties as general director of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Institute_of_Economic_Affairs" title="Institute of Economic Affairs">Institute of Economic Affairs</a> on 1 January 1993.</li>

<li>Co-founder and chairman, from 1993 to 1997, of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_for_Children&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Institute for Children (page does not exist)">Institute for Children</a>, Boston, MA;</li>

<li>founder director (1991-3), <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Institute_for_Justice" title="Institute for Justice">Institute for Justice</a>, Washington DC;</li>

<li>international trustee (1988-93), the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Fraser_Institute" title="Fraser Institute">Fraser Institute</a>, Vancouver, BC;</li>

<li>Founder trustee of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Buckeye_Institute_for_Public_Policy_Solutions" title="Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions">Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions</a>, Dayton, OH.</li>

</ul>

He is a Director of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Fairbridge&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Fairbridge (page does not exist)">Fairbridge</a>, the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Atlas_Economic_Research_Foundation" title="Atlas Economic Research Foundation">Atlas Economic Research Foundation</a> (UK) and the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/International_Policy_Network" title="International Policy Network">International Policy Network</a>. He is chairman of the executive committee of the board of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Atlas_Economic_Research_Foundation" title="Atlas Economic Research Foundation">Atlas Economic Research Foundation</a> (USA).

He is also a board member of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Institute_for_Humane_Studies" title="Institute for Humane Studies">Institute for Humane Studies</a> at <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/George_Mason_University" title="George Mason University">George Mason University</a>, Fairfax, VA; of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Economic_Studies&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Institute of Economic Studies (page does not exist)">Institute of Economic Studies</a> (Europe) in Paris, France; and of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Mont_Pelerin_Society" title="Mont Pelerin Society">Mont Pelerin Society</a>.

He is on the advisory council of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Tax_Payers_Alliance" title="Tax Payers Alliance">Tax Payers Alliance</a>.

<h2>"Wonk Whores"</h2>

A scathing opinion column on corporate-funded think tanks work such as the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/International_Policy_Network" title="International Policy Network">International Policy Network</a> and the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Demos_Institute&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Demos Institute (page does not exist)">Demos Institute</a> cited Blundell dismissing them as "wonk whores". He says: "Global companies are buying up think-tanks left, right and centre. Large cheques come attached to particular policy recommendations and senior corporate types sit on committees ready to ‘candle-snuff’ dangerous ideas," Paul Staines reported in The Times.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/John_Blundell#cite_note-0">[1]</a> In a subsequent letter to the editor, Blundell, who is a trustee of IPN, stated that "the purchase by companies of 'particular policy recommendations' from groups pretending to be independent think-tanks is disgraceful. That is why International Policy Network, a UK charity of which I am a trustee, has a strict policy of not allowing its donors to influence the conclusions of its policy work, and a strict conflict of interest policy."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/John_Blundell#cite_note-1">[2]</a>

<h2>External links</h2>

<ul>

<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.lse.ac.uk/clubs/hayek/capitalism.htm">John Blundell speaker biog</a>, Capitalism seminar, Hayek society, accessed January 2004</li>

<li>Paul Staines, "<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.spinwatch.org/content/view/2267/9/">You want policy? In cash?</a>", The Times (London), December 20, 2005, Page 19.</li>

</ul>

<h2>References</h2>

<li id="cite_note-0"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/John_Blundell#cite_ref-0">↑</a> Paul Staines, [<a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://www.spinwatch.org/content/view/2267/9/">http://www.spinwatch.org/content/view/2267/9/</a> "You want policy? In cash?", The Times, December 20, 2005.</li>

<li id="cite_note-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/John_Blundell#cite_ref-1">↑</a> [<a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article782081.ece">http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article782081.ece</a> "What price liberty?", The Times, December 23, 2005.</li>

</ol>

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<div id="mw-normal-catlinks" class="mw-normal-catlinks"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Special:Categories" title="Special:Categories">Categories</a>:

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Think_tanks/personnel" title="Category:Think tanks/personnel">Think tanks/personnel</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:United_Kingdom" title="Category:United Kingdom">United Kingdom</a></li>

</ul>

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DeSmog UK’s epic history investigates how the former Institute of Economic Affairs director general, John Blundell, recruited British students with a flair for free market economics to the USfor internships at Koch-funded think tanks.

By the early 1990s <a href="http://www.desmog.uk/2014/11/29/blundell-missing-link-between-oil-baron-charles-koch-and-british-climate-denial" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(216, 27, 34); text-decoration: none;">John Blundell</a> was a well established founder and supporter of several American free-market think tanks. So to help grow the neoliberal network, he organised eight-week paid internships in the United States each year for 30 British students who had demonstrated flair and a keen interest in free market economists.

Blundell asked the think tanks such as the <a href="https://cei.org/" target="_blank" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(216, 27, 34); text-decoration: none;">Competitive Enterprise Institute</a> (CEI), supported by the Kochs, to take on some of the young hopefuls. “Fred Smith at CEI agreed but only if he could have Roger Bate,” Blundell confirmed.

<a href="http://www.desmog.uk/2014/11/26/chick-lit-star-dana-living-dream-her-husband-every-climate-and-cancer-campaigner-s-worst-nightmare" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(216, 27, 34); text-decoration: none;">Roger Bate</a> (pictured above) was sharp, energetic and almost fanatical. He had met Smith in 1992 at the week-long “Université d’été des Nouveaux Économistes”  in Aix-en-Provence, France.

Now a free-market economist, Bate was around this time completing an MSc in environment and resource economics at University College London (UCL). Bate was influenced by <a href="https://cei.org/other/james-m-sheehan" target="_blank" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(216, 27, 34); text-decoration: none;">Jimmy Sheehan</a>, a CEI “staffer” who was working on a book about the global environmental movement and a monograph for the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) in London.

Cross Pollination

Bate would, in turn, recruit his friend <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/julian-morris" target="_blank" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(216, 27, 34); text-decoration: none;">Julian Morris</a> to the climate cause. The two men would have a profound influence on the germination and cross pollination of scepticism in London and around the world.

Morris was the handsome, charming and well spoken son of a chemical engineer from Epping. He first became interested in free market economics when he was a 22-year-old student completing an MA at the highly regarded Edinburgh University in 1991.

He read a startling and challenging article in the Financial Times which was based on a monograph by professor Sir Douglas Hague published by the IEA which called for the privatisation of universities.

Morris also read free-marketeer <a href="http://www.desmog.uk/2014/12/16/friedrich-von-hayek-s-free-market-legacy" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(216, 27, 34); text-decoration: none;">Friedrich von Hayek</a>'s The Use of Knowledge in Societyand attended events at the IEA, where he met Blundell and Linda Whetstone, the daughter of IEA founder, Antony Fisher.

Naive Environmentalist

“I was myself a naive young environmentalist,” Morris wrote some years later. “I had just written a paper on how to establish a global system for restricting emissions of carbon dioxide and was about to embark on a masters course in environment and resource economics run by Professor David Pearce at University College London.”

At the time, there was much buzz about a conference due to take place in Rio de Janeiro that was being hailed as the 'Earth Summit' and global warming was a hot item on the agenda.

It was during his masters at UCL that Morris became close friends with Bate and became increasingly immersed in free market ideas and the think tank world.

“I am not dogmatic in my approach”, Morris told me. “I care deeply about the environment.”  

Blundell would later arrange for Morris to fly out to the United States through the Charles G Koch Foundation, taking up a short internship at the Atlas Foundation - both of which Blundell worked for.

“Charles and David Koch are two of the finest, most upstanding businessmen and philanthropists in the world,” Morris told me during an email interview.

While in the US, Morris completed his research for his IEA monograph <a href="http://www.iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/files/upldbook123pdf.pdf" target="_blank" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(216, 27, 34); text-decoration: none;">The Political Economy of Land Degradation</a> in 1995. On his return, he set up shop as a consultant economist and worked for the European Environment Agency, Save the Rhino International and the World Wildlife Fund.

But over the coming years Morris would make considerably more money running think tanks that challenged the science of climate change and attacked policies that would reduce carbon emissions.

Coming up in January: The DeSmog UK history series continues with a look at how fossil-fuel funded scientists launched a full-scale attack against the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change prior to the 1992 Rio Earth Summit.

<a href="https://twitter.com/BrendanMontague" target="_blank" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(216, 27, 34); text-decoration: none;">@Brendanmontague</a>

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http://www.desmog.uk/2014/11/29/blundell-missing-link-between-oil-baron-charles-koch-and-british-climate-denial

<a href="http://www.iea.org.uk/blog/john-blundell-rip" target="_blank" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(216, 27, 34); text-decoration: none;">John Blundell</a> is welcomed into the inner circle of the Koch elite at at time of inner-family squabbling and political scandal. He soon gains insight into an empire run by obsession and apparent deception. This is part two of DeSmogUK’s <a href="http://www.desmog.uk/2014/11/26/blundell-and-koch-empire" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(216, 27, 34); text-decoration: none;">history of Blundell and Charles Koch</a>.

Blundell was offered a well paid job at the<a href="https://www.theihs.org/" target="_blank" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(216, 27, 34); text-decoration: none;">Institute of Humane Studies</a> (IHS) in April 1982 - a hardline neoliberal think tank funded by the oil billionare Charles Koch.

He resigned as spokesman for the<a href="http://www.fsb.org.uk/" target="_blank" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(216, 27, 34); text-decoration: none;"> Federation of Small Businesses</a> and as a councillor at a London borough and moved to California in the United States with his wife Christine and their three-month-old baby boy, Miles.

He was still working at the IHS when it moved to George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, one of the many front groups and free market think tanks to benefit from Koch funding.

Blundell was very close friends with<a href="http://thinktank-watch.blogspot.co.uk/2007/12/sir-anthony-fisher.html" target="blank" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(216, 27, 34); text-decoration: none;"> Antony Fisher</a>, founder of Britain’s <a href="http://www.desmog.uk/2014/09/19/quite-chain-consequences-chicken-farmer" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(216, 27, 34); text-decoration: none;">Institute of Economic Affairs</a>. The 72-year-old chicken farmer knew that he was dying and asked Blundell for help recruiting a replacement as president of his<a href="http://www.atlasnetwork.org/about/our-story" target="blank" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(216, 27, 34); text-decoration: none;"> Atlas Economic Research Foundation</a>.

Blundell recommended a good friend, a retired businessman and fierce exponent of the free market. But Fisher discovered that the appointee spent rather too long on the golf course. “Later he realised that Blundell, a highly effective manager and fundraiser, met the criteria more exactly than any of the other contenders,” according to Gerald Frost, director of the London-based Centre for Policy Studies during the early 1990s.

Blundell took up the job. He moved Atlas over to Fairfax so he could act as president while still running the IHS. He recalled: “I first met Fisher at the IEA in the 1970s and then again when I was living in Menlo Park, California and he was up the road in San francisco.”

Handed the crown

“He was totally obsessed with building new IEAs. I was already running the Institute For Humane Studies.” Blundell continued. “Fisher knew he was about to turn up his toes. I worked with him on finding somebody to take over Atlas but San Francisco was not that appealing and the think tank was turning over $250,000 a year, so not much at all.

“I said I could do it part time in Virginia easily and that this was a better location by far. He agreed as long as he had an office to the day he died. So for eight months we had two offices.”

Blundell at this time became increasingly aware of the small number of scientists and free market think tanks that had started to challenge the emerging science of climate change.

Asked about global warming, he said: “I recall that as president of Atlas I would put free market-oriented environmental thinking on our workshop agenda in order to make sure it spread outside the USA, or at least to make sure think tanks around the world were at the very least aware of this work.”

Blundell was handed the crown when Fisher died and paid tribute by founding the Sir Antony Fisher memorial awards.

He was also becoming a senior member of the Koch cortège, appointed president of theIHS and also became a member of the<a href="https://www.montpelerin.org/montpelerin/index.html" target="blank" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(216, 27, 34); text-decoration: none;"> Mont Pelerin Society</a>, the neoliberal society founded by<a href="http://hayekcenter.org/" target="blank" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(216, 27, 34); text-decoration: none;"> Friedrich Hayek</a> and<a href="http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Friedman.html" target="_blank" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(216, 27, 34); text-decoration: none;"> Milton Friedman</a>, among others.

Meanwhile, Charles Koch desperately needed people around him he could trust. A long-running family feud had gone toxic.

Tax Deductible

Koch siblings were accusing each other of syphoning off the family fortune. One had even gone to the extreme of hiring a private eye with the purpose of finding dirt.

This resulted in a full-blown Senate hearing, in-part based on the muck the investigator had raked up.

Koch Industries, the senators were told, had trained its staff to “mis-measure” oil bought from Native Americans, effectively “stealing” $30 million over three years in the process.

The scandal appears to have remained contained in reports in the Mohave Daily Miner but demonstrates the levels of suspicion and distrust at that time.

At the same time, Charles Koch was watching Blundell's career with keen interest and was extremely impressed by his dedication and quiet determination and decided he was a man who could be trusted.

In March 1991, Koch offered him the prestigious post as president of the Charles G Koch and<a href="http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=claude_r__lambe_charitable_foundation_1" target="_blank" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(216, 27, 34); text-decoration: none;"> Claude R Lambe Charitable Foundations</a> from where he would be responsible for distributing millions in tax-deductible philanthropic donations.

The extent of Blundell's power and the scale of the Koch network of think tanks at this time are revealed in a private letter he typed from his Washington offices to his contact William Orzechowsi in Fairfax, Virginia, in November 1991.

The letter was highly confidential. Blundell was helping recruit the highest generals and the foot soldiers for a huge army of free market detachments and vanguard units.

This included the executive vice president of the<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Citizens_for_a_Sound_Economy" target="_blank" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(216, 27, 34); text-decoration: none;"> Citizens for a Sound Economy</a>, a privatisation policy analyst at the Reason Foundation and two executive directors for the “non-partisan” National Taxpayers Union.

Directors of development were also needed at the Cato Institute, Institute of Humane Studies and Institute for Justice.

One job advert ran: “A citizens action group is seeking a field director to coordinate fundraising, petition drives, media relations, and coalition building with various state level non-partisan campaigns,” adding, “experience in ballot initiatives and petitioning is preferred.”

The list of think tanks included “free market advocacy groups promoting economic freedom” and “lower taxes” working in the fields of social security, medical care, poverty, welfare, education choice, regulation, trade, labour relations and the environment.

He asked for specialists in lobbying, media relations, recruiting students and visiting scholars and “mobilising grassroots support.”

Blundell’s overarching seat would establish the foundations for his direct role in the growing climate denial movement.

<a href="https://twitter.com/brendanmontague" target="_blank" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(216, 27, 34); text-decoration: none;">@brendanmontague</a>

eSmog UK’s epic history series continues with a peek into the intimate friendship between free-market libertarian John Blundell and the Koch brothers.

“Without… Charles and David Koch… without their far-sighted commitment, we would not be here today and we would not be witnessing a world-wide move toward freedom and free markets,” John Blundell once wrote.

The free-market libertarian had just been recruited as the new director of the free-market Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA). Handing in his notice at the Institute for Humane Studies (IHS) – a hardline neoliberal think tank funded by oil billionaire Charles Koch – Blundell booked a flight to England.

But this transatlantic move did not cause the Koch–Blundell relationship to fade. In fact, the friendship extended as far as Blundell continuing to do Koch’s bidding from the IEA’s London offices.

Retirement Funding

Soon after arriving at Lord North Street, Blundell received a call from his former patron in the United States. Margit von Mises, the widow of the Austrian economist <a href="http://mises.org/profile/ludwig-von-mises-0" target="_blank" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(216, 27, 34); text-decoration: none;">Ludwig von Mises</a> (pictured), was now a 102-year-old facing destitution.

“Margit had hocked all she owned and was facing spending the rest of her years in a charity home,” Blundell told the author. “Margit’s only family was in London and I had just reached London. The family were themselves quite old and into retirement and could not reasonably fund Margit.”

“Charles and his right hand man Rich Fink asked me to run a quick operation. They put up a sum and asked me to get it matched. They knew I knew all the folks who could and would do so. It was anything up to $120,000. Anyways, I bashed out a bunch of letters and we got the match. I forget where we ran the pot from but probably had to be a 501(c)(3) in the USA as all the donors were American.”

Private Philanthropy

Blundell succeeded in raising the extra money and opened an account, paying Mrs Mises enough each month to cover her living expenses. After she died, there was still some money remaining.

“When I raised the money I said that as she might well pass on during this first year, would people nominate to whom the balance should go if that indeed did happen. I recallIHS being the main one.” He added, “I did that as director general of the IEA but cannot recall if the dosh passed through us or somewhere else.”

Blundell recalled fondly: “Charles was very like Thatcher in that he did and still does strongly believe in quiet private acts of philanthropy.”

This remarkable act of selflessness demonstrates how close Blundell remained with the oil billionaire when he arrived in London and established the first climate sceptic outfit in Britain.

Next time, our epic history series investigates how Blundell challenged the young Roger Bate to set up an environment unit within the IEA.

<a href="https://twitter.com/BrendanMontague" target="_blank" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(216, 27, 34); text-decoration: none;">@brendanmontague</a>

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