Joseph Coors

Coors was born Nov. 12, 1917, in Golden, Colo., and with brothers Bill and Adolph III (killed in 1960 in a kidnapping) grew up in the 22-room mansion built by their grandfather, Prussian immigrant Adolph Herman Joseph Coors, near his brewery on Clear Creek. A director of what he helped build into the nation's third-largest brewery from 1946 until 2000, Coors was named company president in 1977, chief operating officer in 1980 and vice chairman in 1985. He left daily operations to older brother, Bill, and son Peter in 1987 and retired to his desert California estate. It was in Palm Springs that Coors met Reagan in 1967. Carefully nurtured by his family in free enterprise, Coors had embraced the conservative political movement after reading Russell Kirk's "The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Santayana" in 1953 and saw Reagan as the perfect candidate to promote his goals. He saw to it that Coors Brewery sponsored a series of radio broadcasts by Reagan in the mid-1960s. Along with Holmes Tuttle, Alfred Bloomingdale and Justin Dart, among others, Coors formed the nucleus of the original "kitchen cabinet." The wealthy businessmen and Republican contributors helped elect and advise Reagan through his two terms as California governor and two terms as president. Coors was so supportive of Reagan that he even wired $65,000 to a Swiss banking account, at the suggestion of former CIA Director William J. Casey and White House aide Oliver L. North, to buy a small cargo plane for Nicaraguan rebels. Coors testified before congressional committees investigating the Iran-Contra scandal in 1987 that North had subsequently showed him a photograph of the plane he paid for. Coors in 1973 provided funding -- $250,000 initially and another $300,000 annually for several years afterward -- for Paul Weyrich to create the Heritage Foundation. The Washington, D.C., conservative think tank created policy papers forming the basis of several Reagan presidential projects, including the "Star Wars" space-based defense initiative, "trickle-down" economics and massive budget cuts. In 1977, Coors also funded the Mountain States Legal Foundation -- initially headed by James G. Watt, who became Reagan's controversial Interior secretary -- to fight environmental restrictions and affirmative action requirements Coors felt interfered with business operations.