Welch drove his points home in his monthly magazine, American Opinion, and in the bulletins sent out every few weeks. The Society encouraged collateral ideological activity, including anti-Communist documentaries. These were shown at chapter meetings and at meetings of veterans’ organizations, rotary clubs, and associations of concerned and civic-minded women. At Belmont, reviewing plans for a documentary on the crushing of the student rebels in Budapest in 1956, Jesse Andrews drew Welch’s attention to Woodroe Raynor, the JBS student member at Princeton.
“My card file pays off, Bob. In his membership application he said he was in Austria in 1956 when Hungary was invaded.”
Welch moved quickly.
“When does the kid graduate?”
Andrews looked back at the card. “In June.”
“Let’s get him up here. I’ll invite him to the spring seminar.”
9
THE DISCIPLES CONVENED at her apartment every Saturday evening, arriving after dinner and staying on sometimes until two or three in the morning. Calling them “The Collective” was rather like calling members of a war cabinet “The Doves”—that name, given to the most passionate concentration of anticollectivists in America.
They sat comfortably in her studio living room at 36 East Thirty-sixth Street, from which the skyline of the city’s Murray Hill district was visible. Frank O’Connor, her husband, arrived late and was met at the door by his wife.
“Hello, Fluff,” he said, leaning forward to kiss her on the forehead.
“Hello, Cubbyhole,” she responded.
Frank O’Connor, in recent years diligently engaged in oil painting, would usually come to gatherings of the Collective, but he did not pretend to be schooled in the intricacies of the philosophy that bound them together. He always listened worshipfully, though if it got late, sometimes he would snooze a bit.
Worship was an important part of the communal exercise. Yet it was in part social, in major part of course instructive. These were young men and women of extraordinary intellect, and Ayn Rand was their lodestar. If there was any deviation, however unintentional, the errant compass was fine-tuned by her word. By her afflatus, though that term would never be used, suggesting, as it does, divine inspiration.
Although most of the Collective were ethnically Jewish, they scorned the Torah as they did Christianity, if not so comprehensively, Judaism being focused more on life on earth than on afterlife. But Judaism, like all religions in objectivist terminology, was nothing more than superstition. A first axiom of objectivism was the nonobjective nature of religion.
Traces of a religious legacy were there in the Collectivist Room, even if hardly integral. When Alissa Rosenbaum changed her name, soon after her arrival in Chicago from Russia at age twenty-one, she selected as her new first name “Ayn,” which, one biographer has noted, derives from the Russian Ayin (“eye”), her father’s not-uncommon Hebrew pet name for her as a child. The diminutive “Ayneleh” implies “bright eyes,” perfectly singling out the most conspicuous feature of Ayn Rand’s face, her lustrous, riveting eyes. And then the adopted surname—Rand—was the word everywhere associated with the currency of South Africa. It was the resource of the (mostly Jewish) entrepreneurs in South Africa who mined gold, gold becoming, in the literature of the author, something in the nature of a sublime substance, the fruit of reason and productivity and egoism. Her father’s little business in St. Petersburg was nationalized when the Communists took over, the family apartment expropriated. Even so, the young Alissa did a year’s academic program at the University of Leningrad before making her way, through family friends, to America in 1926.
There in the room, seated at her side, was her twenty-seven-year-old successor-designate, the brilliant Nathaniel Branden (born Nathan Blumenthal), named coadjutor in 1955. There was a haze in the room. Only Joan Mitchell resisted smoking. Encouraged by the leader to do so, even Leonard Peikoff, philosophy student at New York University, had begun to smoke cigarettes at age twenty. He, like Branden and his wife, Barbara, was Canadian, as was Elayne Blumenthal, sister of Nathan and wife of Harry Kalberman, account executive at Merrill Lynch. Allan Blumenthal, a cousin of Nathaniel, was a psychiatrist and physician, if a disappointed scientist, having labored to succeed as a concert pianist. Alan Greenspan was the professionally trained economist. The non-Jews were Mary Ann Rukavina and Joan Mitchell, graduates of NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts, now engrossed in Randian objectivism and at work studying philosophy at NYU.
The year 1958 was high season for the Collective: Atlas Shrugged, the much-heralded novel of the prophet, successor to the great Fountainhead of 1943, had been published the previous October. This was a work of genius, manifestly, but also of stupendous importance to the movement, culminating in a torrential display of the objectivist epiphany.
Ayn Rand had devoted thirteen years to its creation. Two whole years had been given to a single episode in it, the speech by its protagonist, John Galt, wherein he vouchsafed the objectivist code of thought and of social and political organization.
Two years to compose that speech! The mere recitation of it, done in the closing pages of the novel (it played the role of scriptural revelation), took three hours. Members of the Collective had been permitted to read prepublication excerpts of the book, but Nathaniel Branden alone had read it all. He would discover, soon before the publication date, that Ayn Rand had dedicated the book to two people, to her husband, Frank O’Connor—and to Nathaniel Branden. His gratitude, pride, and jubilation overwhelmed him in the heady days after the book’s appearance. In the weeks and months following publication, the members of the Collective passed about among themselves news of its commercial progress and reports on its critical reception. The massive, 1,168-page book had had an initial run of 100,000 copies. Almost every day, enthusiastic publisher Bennett Cerf passed on to Ayn, or if she was away, to Frank, or Nathaniel, news of sales. “He has told me that there will assuredly be a third printing,” Ayn reported to the Collective. Ayn was seated at one end of a large sofa, wearing a cotton print day dress with short sleeves and single-button trim.
“Before Atlas Shrugged stops selling there will be a hundred printings,” Branden proclaimed. There were excited murmurs of approbation.
“Read out the review by Ruth Alexander,” Leonard Peikoff said, addressing Rand.
“You read it, Leonard.” She pointed to the folder on the desk. Peikoff went over to pull it out.
“Read the last sentence first,” Frank O’Connor said.
Peikoff turned the page. “‘Ayn Rand is destined to rank in history as the outstanding novelist and profoundest philosopher of the twentieth century.’” He turned back to the beginning of the review and read the whole of it out loud.
Frank had finished his second glass of whiskey, and he put down his foot in dangerous territory. “It’s a pity about Whittaker Chambers.”
There was silence.
Then he said, simply, “To hell with Whittaker Chambers.”
Barbara Branden said, “I’ll see you and raise you one: To hell with National Review.”
“And I’ll raise you, Barbara. To hell with Bill Buckley,” Nathaniel said.
Ayn Rand turned to her husband. “As you know, I have not read the review by Whittaker Chambers and I will never do so. The very idea of sending Atlas Shrugged out for review to an ex-Communist religious fanatic!”
“Ayn, I want to read you the letter I sent to National Review when I got the copy on Monday with that review.”
Ayn raised her hand for silence. “Yes. Go ahead, Alan. I would like to hear it.”
Alan Greenspan took his letter-to-the-editor from his pocket. “‘I have just read Whittaker Chambers’s review of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. I am shocked, though perhaps I shouldn’t have been. This man is beneath contempt and I would not honor his “review” of Ayn Rand’s magnificent masterpiece by even commenting on it. But you who consider yourself a defender of free enterprise should feel shame. Someone has finally defined
the rational morality underlying capitalism and you treat it in such a vulgar manner.’”
Ayn drew deeply on her cigarette. “That is probably appropriate. The magazine does great harm. It poses as the conservative voice, but its editor is wholly ignorant of the implications of freedom. And I know this not just from reading him. He was here one time, so I tested his ignorance personally. Let me now make one ruling on the general subject: Under no circumstances will the review by Whittaker Chambers be mentioned again in my presence, and I reiterate my pledge never to read it.
“Now,” she turned to Branden, “let us speak for a moment on a confusion I have detected on the question of ego and self-fulfillment. A proper functioning of the mind in search of reason will lead to—notice, I did not say will divine—the constituents of self-fulfillment.”
One hour later, Nathaniel was still developing the subject. It was gratifying to see Ayn nodding her head as he proceeded to disclose the arrangement of the text of the lecture he was preparing for the Objectivist series.
BOOK TWO
10
THE TIME HAD COME to pass resolutions. Bob Schuchman reminded the assembly—it was a full house, ninety-three delegates—that special importance attached to these resolutions. “They’ll be the first ever adopted by the Young Americans for Freedom.” The delegates had settled on this organizational name to succeed the provisional “Interim Committee for the Founding of a National Conservative Youth Organization.”
“That means our resolutions will be historic!” Carol Dawson, acting as secretary, took notes and smiled a pert smile.
“Of course, Madam Secretary,” the chairman said, turning his head to the twenty-year-old college junior. “History is in our hands!” Schuchman, a broad smile on his face, called for attention.
“But we’ve already got the Sharon Statement.” Leonora Goldstein spoke up in the high, confident voice the delegates had got used to in the two days they had deliberated together. Goldstein, a commanding presence, though just turned twenty-one, was seated five or six rows back from the speaker, who stood by the tiled fountain pool in the large sheltered patio between two wings of their hosts’ residence.
“Leonora, that’s different.” Schuchman could go into the pedantic mode with just a little prodding. He had made his way through college by tutoring students younger than himself, when he could find them. “The Sharon Statement is our constitution. We’re through with that. That’s done. Over and out. We’re talking now about resolutions on immediate public questions like”—Schuchman grinned—“do we go along with electing Richard Nixon president?”
There was a titter of applause followed by playful booing, and some not-so-playful. Dick Cowan spoke for the hard-liners. “Nixon hasn’t done anything for the cause since nabbing Alger Hiss, and that was . . . what?”—he started to count out loud—“1948, 1949, 1950 . . . this is 1960—twelve years ago. He sits around in Washington approving everything our great President Eisenhower does—doesn’t do—almost does—thinks about doing.”
Carol Dawson turned from her seat in the front row. “So you want Senator Kennedy to be president?”
Cowan said nothing, returning to his writing pad. Woodroe Raynor, seated next to him, heard him mutter, “What’s the difference? They’re both socialists.” Raynor accosted the dissenter in a voice everyone could hear clearly. “That’s the question, Dick. Do we want to elect Kennedy president?” Woodroe had special standing in the group. He alone, of the students present, had experienced firsthand the workings of Soviet repression.
“Let’s vote, get that resolution out of the way.” Schuchman gaveled. He liked to use his gavel, even when there was no special need for it. The patio was large, rising to the third story. Etched windows protected the patio from rain. They tilted up to let in the air. Voices were easily heard from one end of the room to the other; the gavel sound was muted by the foliage, so Schuchman struck it down more heavily.
The vote was 55–26 in favor of endorsing the GOP national ticket in November.
“Next?” Chairman Schuchman recognized Jim Kolbe.
“This resolution is offered on behalf of the enlightened Young Republicans of Northwestern University,” Kolbe said, “all six of us.” He bent his head to his writing pad to make sure he would recite exactly the text he had prepared. “Resolved, The House Committee on Un-American Activities should investigate the record, the sponsors, and the finances of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.”
Schuchman moved his head thoughtfully, left to right. “I don’t know, Jim. We don’t want a congressional investigating committee poking around looking into every outfit we disapprove of—”
Jim’s face colored. He brushed back his hair and looked up from his notes. “It is the government’s business if the organization is run by Communists or pro-Communists. J. B. Matthews said that the sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists have between them—among them—”
“‘Between them’ is okay,” Alice Sulzer, the parliamentarian, volunteered. “You can say ‘between’ even when it’s more than two people.”
“—between them. The Bulletin’s sponsors, which include Professor Albert Sechuan from Ithaca, have a cumulative record of backing forty-eight Communist fronts, according to Matthews.”
J. B. Matthews was the acknowledged national curator of U.S. pro-Communist activity. His renowned files were said to have in them the names of every American who had ever participated in an official capacity in any Communist-front organization.
“Look,” Schuchman said, “we’re a libertarian organization—”
“Libertarian-conservative,” Stan Evans, the young editor of the Indianapolis News, corrected.
“Yes. But as libertarians we don’t want to get the reputation of—we don’t want to encourage government prying into private activities.”
Woodroe Raynor felt challenged. “Mr. Chairman—” He stood up to address the entire assembly. Moving back, he brushed his head on one of the vines that hung down from the second-story balcony. “Okay, yes, Senator McCarthy is gone, and okay, he didn’t uncover a dark plot in government, so he is discredited—”
“Not so fast,” Evans shot back. “What happened wasn’t that Joe McCarthy was discredited. What happened was that the bad guys won.”
There was a smattering of applause.
“I understand your point, Stan. But what I want to say is that it is legitimate congressional activity to pursue organizations being run at the direction of the Communist Party, and we ought to go on record on that point. People can’t defend any longer, thanks to the McCarran Committee, the Institute of Pacific Relations, for example. Thanks to an investigating committee, we know that it has been, the exact words used in the McCarran Committee report—signed by Republicans and Democrats—‘a conscious, articulate instrument of the Soviet conspiracy.’ My point is that we ought to come up with a resolution that encourages the continuation of that kind of congressional investigation.”
“I see your point,” Schuchman said. “But the resolution shouldn’t single out any one organization, like the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. We should just encourage the investigation of subversive activity—”
“Why not?” Raynor said. “What we have from that atomic scientists’ group is at no point—never—anything different from what Moscow wants. Those . . . scientists . . . don’t want further nuclear tests, they don’t want any development of an antinuclear missile, they don’t want civil defense activity, they’re criticizing the ruling on Oppenheimer that denied him security clearance. We have to ask ourselves, a young people’s conservative political organization—have to ask ourselves, What is the responsibility of democratic government when there’s seditious activity out there taking advantage of civil liberties?”
“Again, I see your point, Woody, but I say no to singling out any one organization to go after.”
“Vote.”
“Vote!” a tier of delegates chimed in.
It was—by acclamation�
��time to vote.
It had been a long day, following the long working night on Friday. And it was getting late, edging toward evening at summer’s end. Cocktails had been scheduled for six, the buffet supper would be at seven. Schuchman was anxious not to disrupt the schedule made by sixty-five-year-old widow Mrs. Buckley. She had kept well away from the proceedings themselves, but she exercised a firm supervisory role over the catering staff, assembled in her large kitchen awaiting word to activate the bar in the living room adjacent to the patio.
The young men all wore ties and jackets, most of the women, skirts. Jewelry is a spice of life, and the young ladies affirmed the point with earrings and costume diamonds. And then, as on the two preceding evenings, there was the splash of Miss Aztec, as Katherine Harter of Arizona, laden down with turquoise and silver Indian-ware from Goldwater country, had been dubbed. Soon after 6:30, drinks having been served, the voice level rose. The excitement and self-satisfaction of the founding delegates became palpable. Word buzzed about that a New York Times reporter had called in to do a story on the founding convention.
Bob Schuchman, standing busily by the double-door entrance to the patio, didn’t turn on the microphone to welcome an august guest. John Dos Passos, always self-effacing, had said he didn’t want “any fuss” made about his being there. But everyone knew of the high reputation of the writer, a prize-winning novelist and journalist, author of the acclaimed U.S.A. trilogy. Dos Passos had made his opening to the American Right in National Review four years before, writing, in his trademark medley of news-style reporting and lyricism, an account of presidential campaign events. His article in 1956 was called “Patrician on a Mission.” The essay spoke inquisitively of Adlai Stevenson’s distinctive campaign style.
Getting It Right Page 6
