Ayn Rand and the World She Made

by Anne C. Heller

  most expensive paperback ever sold: TPOAR, p. 299.

  NAL republished Anthem: The NAL edition of Anthem was published in September 1961. By late 1963, there were five hundred thousand copies of Anthem in print (“Objectivist Calendar,” TON, January 1962 and November 1963, pp. 1, 41).

  Participants arrived once a week: Author interview with Florence Hirschfeld, Jonathan Hirschfeld, and EK, August 25, 2006.

  each paying half the New York rate: NBI flyer, September 1964, courtesy of Lee Clifford.

  gave readings of Rand’s plays: “Objectivist Calendar,” TON, October 1963 and May 1965, p. 22.

  wrote proudly of having aided Rand’s transformation: MYWAR, p. 237.

  it was the buzz and growing influence: http://www.solopassion.com/node/1257.

  “infinitely more rational”: BBTBI.

  “whole enormous response to

  Nathan”: http://www.solopassion.com/node/1257.

  “I hate bitterness”: MYWAR, p. 251.

  “I’m inclined to think, in the end, no”: Author interview with NB, May 5, 2004.

  FOURTEEN: ACCOUNT OVER DRAWN: 1962–1967

  “It does not matter that only a few in each generation”: Introduction to TF, p. xii.

  Yale Law School’s prestigious Challenge series: The lecture took place on February 17, 1960.

  In a car on the way to New Haven: TPOAR, p. 315.

  the New Haven Symphony Orchestra: “Down with Altruism,” Time, February 29, 1960.

  thought of Yale as a breeding ground for liberals: Author interview with Robert Hessen, October 17, 2007; TPOAR, p. 315.

  the overflow was so great: From an unpublished 1984 tribute to AR by Larry Scott, who was a Yale student at the time of AR’s speech; courtesy of MSC.

  “Young man: the janitors!”: TPOAR, p. 316.

  several times interrupted by applause: Ed Barthelmes, “First mailed copy” for Time article (“Personal newspaper clippings 1916–1960,” Isabel Paterson Papers, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, box 6).

  “Do not confuse altruism”: “Faith and Force: Destroyers of the Modern World,” reprinted in Philosophy: Who Needs It (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1982).

  a revealing anecdote: Ed Barthelmes, “First mailed copy” for Time article.

  she said that she hated speaking: Author correspondence with BB, June 17, 2008.

  “As an advocate of reason, freedom”: The speech, delivered at the Ford Hall Forum on March 26, 1961, was titled “The Intellectual Bankruptcy of Our Age;” a version appears in The Voice of Reason, Leonard Peikoff, ed. (New York: New American Library, 1989); quote is from AR, p. 94.

  “radical for capitalism”: “Conservatism: An Obituary” was delivered at Princeton University on December 7, 1960, and was reprinted in Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal.

  nearly twice as many students: “Ayn Rand as a Public Speaker.”

  addressed an overflow audience in Ferris Booth Hall: The speech was “Faith and Force: Destroyers of the Modern World,” delivered at Columbia University, May 5, 1960.

  “That’s when I was struck”: Unpublished taped interview of Bertha Krantz by BB, dated September 20, 1983.

  at the University of Michigan: On May, 15, 1961, the University of Michigan filmed a postlecture interview with AR on the subject of “The New Intellectual.” “The man who defines the basic, fundamental ideas of a culture is the man who determines history,” she told the interviewer, a professor of philosophy.

  Boston University, Brown, Purdue: “Ayn Rand as a Public Speaker.”

  she gave a lecture entitled “The Objectivist Ethics”: AR gave this lecture at the University of Wisconsin on February 9, 1961. (Quotes are from TVOS, pp. 13–39.)

  from as far away as Africa: 100 Voices, Frances Smith, president of the Ford Hall Forum, p. 222.

  even the night before: Author correspondence with BB, June 27, 2008.

  exchange ideas, news, and gossip: Author interview with Molly Hays, February 29, 2004.

  on WBAI-FM: Together and separately, AR and NB taped radio programs for WBAI from 1961 to 1965. From 1965 to 1969, AR had a regular biweekly program of her own.

  turned young adversaries into grudging admirers: “I’ve seen audiences start booing and end up cheering,” said LP; AR:SOL, DVD.

  “Abortion is a moral right”: AR, “Of Living Death,” speech given at the Ford Hall Forum, December 8, 1968, reprinted in The Objectivist, September—November 1968, p. 534.

  primarily because its purpose: May 4, 1946 (JOAR, p. 479).

  She wasn’t convinced: MYWAR, p. 211.

  composing essays was child’s play: Harry Binswanger, “Recollections of Ayn Rand.”

  clarity and logic: MYWAR, p. 297.

  warns against defining national emergencies too broadly: Ayn Rand, “The Ethics of Emergencies,” TON, February 1963; reprinted in TVOS, p. 49.

  “for the gold standard’s inherent price stability”: The Age of Turbulence, p. 481.

  she endorsed Goldwater: TON, October 1963 and March, July, September, and October 1964.

  helped to found the club and magazine: Author interview with JKT, May 21, 2004.

  famous Goldwater rally: This took place on May 12, 1964.

  “It made his points in his voice”: Unpublished taped interview with Barbara Weiss, conducted by BB, September 25, 1983.

  took the document to Goldwater’s temporary office: Author interview with BB, October 14, 2007.

  didn’t receive the speech in time: I haven’t been able to find a copy of this speech in the Goldwater archives or among the papers of his senior staff.

  imprecision of his language: Ayn Rand, “Check Your Premises: The Argument from Intimidation,” TON, July 1964, p. 26.

  “Daisy” television ad: The ad, broadcast by the Democrats in September 1964, showed a little girl sitting in a green field counting the petals of a daisy. A male voice also begins to count—a countdown to a nuclear explosion. The implication was that Barry Goldwater’s stance against a nuclear test-ban treaty with Russia would end in a nuclear war.

  “In former campaigns”: Ayn Rand, “Check Your Premises: It Is Earlier Than You Think,” TON, December 1964, p. 49.

  March 1964 Playboy interview: “The Playboy Interview: Ayn Rand,” pp. 38–43, 64.

  Alvin Toffler: Toffler visited AR’s apartment to conduct the interview. At first, she struck him as “a nice Russian-Jewish grandma.” When he admitted that he had not read AS, she ordered him out and told him not to return until he had read it. After a subsequent, more successful interview, he recalled that his transcriptionist couldn’t decipher her words through her thick Russian accent. Finally, on receiving proofs, she edited not only her answers to his questions but also the questions and his introduction. Toffler wasn’t impressed by her philosophy. “It was like Marxism turned upside down,” he said. But he liked her and invited her to dinner with his wife and guests (author interview with Alvin Toffler, May 27, 2007).

  reached two and a half million people: Don Hauptman, “The ‘Lost’ Parts of Ayn Rand’s Playboy Interview,” Navigator, March 2004, p. 9.

  attributed the suffering of mankind: NB named these archetypes (JD, p. 281).

  “chief destroyer of the modern world”: Ayn Rand, “Brief Summary,” The Objectivist, September 1971, p. 1091. Interestingly, Nietzsche also hated Kant. In The Anti-Christ, he wrote that Kant and others like him regarded “beautiful feelings” as arguments, “the heaving breast as the bellows of divine inspiration,” and conviction as the criterion of truth. “German decadence as a philosophy—that is Kant!” he wrote in 1895 (trans., H. L. Mencken, 1920).

  a “New Intellectual”: “New man” was a popular concept in the Russia of AR’s youth, appearing, for example, in Lenin’s favorite novel, Nikolai Chernyshevsky’s What Is to Be Done? and in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Chernyshevsky’s new man is, however, a mythic revolutionary struggling to create a collective social order (see New Myth, New World: From Nietzsche to Stalinism, pp. 189–202).
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  One hundred or so “new intellectuals”: “Born Eccentric,” Newsweek, March 27, 1961. A day or two after the piece appeared, NB distributed an open letter to NBI students urging them to cancel their Newsweek subscriptions (“An Open Letter from NB to Our Readers,” March 22, 1961).

  “a glare [that] would wilt a cactus”: “Born Eccentric.”

  “the free enterprise system’s Joan of Arc”: “The Curious Cult of Ayn Rand,” pp. 99–102.

  by now she made it a point never to read: Author interview with Robert Hessen, October 17, 2007.

  “nearly perfect in its immorality”: Gore Vidal, “Comment,” Esquire, July 1961, pp. 24–28.

  sitting around “in booths”: “The Book Shelf,” Wall Street Journal, March 24, 1961, p. 10.

  326 did read Sidney Hook’s review: Sidney Hook, “Each Man for Himself,” NYT Book Review, April 9, 1961, p. 3.

  the children would have starved to death: Nathaniel Branden, “Concerning Ayn Rand’s For the New Intellectual” display ad, NYT, May 28, 1961, p. B14.

  had been Barbara Branden’s master’s-thesis advisor: TPOAR, p. 321.

  exempted them from challenging him: Author interview with BB, October 14, 2007.

  he constructed a point-by-point: “Concerning Ayn Rand’s For the New Intellectual,” p. B14.

  “It was almost worth Hook’s review”: MYWAR, p. 248.

  proud of his ability: JD, p. 282.

  his “failure”: Author interview with NB, May 5, 2004.

  Who Is Ayn Rand?: The book was based on a series of talks NB presented on WBAI-FM in New York in 1961.

  the Brandens later disavowed it: Michael Etchison, “Break Free!” interview with NB, Reason, reprint, October 1971, p. 1.

  “She could hardly complain”: MYWAR, p. 249.

  “enormous enthusiasm was expected”: “Objectivism Past and Future.”

  “Right and wrong, rational and irrational”: Author interview with JMB and Dr. Allan Blumenthal, March 23, 2004.

  “Judge, and be prepared to be judged”: TVOS, p. 83.

  “Moral judgments were required”: Unpublished taped interview with Barbara Weiss, conducted by BB, September 25, 1983.

  new emphasis on “sense of life”: Author interview with Jonathan Hirschfeld, NB’s nephew, who spent summers working at NBI and attended social functions. “Every thought implies a value judgment,” AR wrote (January 9, 1954 [JOAR, p. 659]).

  “Most people were walking on eggshells”: “Interview with Henry Mark Holzer,” p. 6. In 2006, Holzer told another interviewer, “Sometimes it was like walking on eggshells, and sometimes it was like walking on air” (OHP, Hank and Erika Holzer, February 9, 2006).

  “Her idea of encouraging a person”: “Break Free! interview with Nathaniel Branden,” p. 9.

  “She was the Evel Knievel of leaping to conclusions”: Author interview with Robert Hessen, November 2, 2007.

  “There was very little psychological privacy”: “The Liberty Interview: Nathaniel Branden Speaks,” pp. 38–39.

  “his denunciation was much more damaging”: “Ayn Rand and Her Movement,” pp. 7, 8. In 1999, NB disputed this assessment, telling an interviewer, “Ayn took, uh, denunciation, judgmentalism, to a … an intensity that nobody [chuckles] could approach!” (ellipsis and interjection in the original); “The Liberty Interview: Nathaniel Branden Speaks,” p. 39.

  a rising academic thinker: JH went on to serve as chair of the philosophy department of the University of Southern California.

  “bowled over”: John Hospers, “Memories of Ayn Rand,” Full Context, May 1998, p. 3.

  which Hospers praised in depth: Karen Minto, “Interview with John Hospers,” Full Context, May 1998, p. 8.

  330 didn’t remember her answer: “Conversations with Ayn Rand,” p. 23.

  “which could warm you and freeze you by turns”: “Memories of Ayn Rand,” p. 3.

  “She read almost no philosophy at all”: “Conversations with Ayn Rand,” p. 47.

  her ideas “had come full-blown from her head”: JH, from taped, unpublished interviews by journalist JW in preparation for a CBC special report on the tenth anniversary of AR’s death, titled Ideas: The Legacy of Ayn Rand (1992).

  “relegated to the scrap-heap”: “Conversations with Ayn Rand,” p. 24.

  “shivering, scared children”: John Hospers, “Remembrance of Things Past,” Liberty, August 2006, pp. 19–22.

  “‘Undigested agreement’ does not interest or concern me”: Letter to JH, January 3, 1961 (LOAR, p. 531).

  If she didn’t find it: Author correspondence with BB, June 27, 2008.

  she saw the realm of ideas: John Hospers, “Conversations with Ayn Rand II,” Liberty, September 1990, page 51.

  “Any hint of thinking as one formerly had”: “Conversations with Ayn Rand II,” p. 52.

  “to the stratosphere in anger”: “Conversations with Ayn Rand II,” p. 42.

  She had frequently complained to him: JH from taped, unpublished interviews by journalist JW in preparation for a CBC special report on the tenth anniversary of AR’s death, titled Ideas: The Legacy of Ayn Rand (1992).

  She gave a formal, twenty-minute paper: Or “Art and Sense of Life,” a version of which appears under that title in The Romantic Manifesto.

  According to Barbara: Author correspondence with BB, June 27, 2008.

  brought him close to tears: “Memories of Ayn Rand,” pp. 5, 7.

  spoke to twenty-five hundred fans: “Ayn Rand Rips Trust Laws,” Chicago Tribune, September 30, 1963, p. 22.

  traveled hundreds of miles to hear her: Author interview with Ed Nash, former Chicago NBI representative, January 6, 2005.

  On Rand’s mother’s side: Letter to Esther Stone, August 17, 1963 (LOAR, p. 611).

  Luckily, it was a hoax: 100 Voices, Iris Bell, p. 228.

  Rand’s black dress: Author interview with Susan Belter, December 18, 2006.

  “It was polite but formal”: Unpublished, taped interview with MS, conducted by BB, February 20, 1983.

  “She was like a queen on a throne”: 100 Voices, FB, p. 27.

  specifically the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act: “Ayn Rand Rips Trust Laws,” p. 22.

  didn’t come to the funeral: AR’s second cousin Roger Salamon (Sarah Lipton’s grandson) recalls that AR attended Burt Stone’s funeral, but FB and Burt Stone’s granddaughter Susan Belter remember her absence. All agree that relations with AR cooled over time and the family lost touch with her in the middle 1960s.

  “He was very rude”: Interview with MS, conducted by BB, February 20, 1983.

  left Chicago by plane for Portland, Oregon: The Brandens, who accompanied AR, couldn’t remember whether they also flew from New York to Chicago on the first leg of the trip. Either way, once in the plane she lost her fear of flying. “The unknown frightened her,” Barbara observed, “a fact of reality did not” (TPOAR, p. 318). She flew again in the 1970s.

  Rand was joining him for a question-and-answer session: “Objectivist Calendar,” TON, September 1963, p. 36.

  so crammed that a janitor called the fire department: 100 Voices, Jan Schulman, p. 248.

  heard Frank’s voice through an open window: Author interview with RBH, May 19, 2005.

  for years had been displeased: MYWAR, p. 203.

  “a chicken and unloyal”: 100 Voices, Perry Knowlton, p. 307.

  suggested publishing a second collection: TPOAR, pp. 321–22.

  “The Fascist New Frontier”: This essay was based on a speech by the same name given at the Ford Hall Forum on December 16, 1962.

  would have to remove the essay and change the title: Second draft of an unpublished letter from BC to AR, October 18, 1963 (Bennett Cerf Collection, Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library, box 57).

  “He made the decision not to publish”: TPOAR, p. 322.

  One day in mid-October: They met on October 16, 1963; second draft of an unpublished letter from BC to AR, October 18, 1963.

  her whole point:
Manuscript letter to BC, October 30, 1963 (Bennett Cerf Collection, Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library, box 57).

  “Get yourself another publisher”: BC’s oral history interview on file at the Columbia University Oral History Project archives, number 719, p. 951; letter to BC, October 30, 1963 (LOAR, pp. 617–21).

  had contracted to pay: 100 Voices, Perry Knowlton, p. 307.

  new “unrequited love story”: JOAR, p. 709.

  paid many of the bills at NAL: 100 Voices, Patrick McConnell (one of AR’s editors at New American Library), p. 451.

  had to nag and coax the editors: 100 Voices, Perry Knowlton, p. 312.

  “delegated to Ayn Rand duty”: Author interview with former New American Library editor Gerry Howard, March 2, 2004.

  “She asked me at lunch”: Author interview with former New American Library editor John Thornton, who was assigned to AR from 1975–79; March 4, 2004.

  “That’s not funny”: 100 Voices, Patrick McConnell, p. 451.

  “no conflicts of interest among rational men”: TVOS, p. 57.

  The Virtue of Selfishness did not include: NBI published “The Fascist New Frontier” as a pamphlet in 1963.

  “I hope you will agree”: Manuscript letter from BC to AR, November 26, 1963 (Bennett Cerf Collection, Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library, box 57).

  “She said the assassination”: BC, Columbia University Oral History Project interview, p. 952.

  “I think you are one of the most wonderful people”: Unpublished letter from BC to AR, March 29, 1965 (Bennett Cerf Collection, Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library, box 57).

  She also wished him well: Letter to BC, April 3, 1965 (LOAR, pp. 634–35).

  337 Cerf blamed her followers: Cerf, Columbia University Oral History Project interview, p. 952.

  “She was a revolutionary”: JH, from taped, unpublished interviews by journalist JW in preparation for a CBC special report on the tenth anniversary of AR’s death, titled Ideas: The Legacy of Ayn Rand (1992).

  “She could be immensely empathetic”: Author interview with BB, October 12, 2007.

  “This is exactly how I feel about myself”: 100 Voices, Ilona Royce Smithkin, p. 214.