critique the very passages: TPOAR, p. 278; 100 Voices, Kathleen Nickerson, p. 183.
“Good Copy”: “Good Copy” appears in TEAR, p. 56.
“she began to shout in outrage”: TPOAR, p. 278.
295 “a philosophy for living on earth”: “Philosophy: Who Needs It,” The Ayn Rand Letter, January 14, 1974 (vol. 3, no. 8), p. 284.
while researching a New York newspaper interview: This was the NYP interview in which AR suggested that she was the world’s most creative philosopher. At that time, Wallace had not yet met or talked to her.
“spouting these strange ideas”: Author interview with Al Ramrus, March 1, 2007.
Two days later, along came: Author correspondence with Al Ramrus, March 19, 2007.
“was hugely impressed”: Author interview with Al Ramrus, March 1, 2007.
“was inspiring and, by example, empowering”: Author correspondence with Al Ramrus, March 14, 2007.
joined the circle surrounding Rand: Author interview with Al Ramrus, March 1, 2007.
obtained early copies of Atlas Shrugged: OHP interview with Robert Hessen, November 10, 2004.
“since [Ayn’s followers] all have”: Unpublished letter from MR to Richard Cornuelle, August 11, 1954, quoted in Radicals for Capitalism, p. 261.
“the greatest novel ever written”: Unpublished letter from MR to AR, October 3, 1957, copy courtesy of Justin Raimondo.
He also entered into a course of psychotherapy with Branden: “Ayn Rand and Her Movement,” pp. 3, 8.
On the basis of such assurances: Unpublished letter from MR to NB, July 15, 1958, courtesy of Justin Raimondo.
considered him to be an established genius: MYWAR, p. 97.
“Nathan was everybody’s therapist”: “Ayn Rand and Her Movement,” pp. 7, 8.
would get one in 1973: In 1973, NB received his Ph.D. in psychology from the unaccredited California Graduate Institute. In an interview, NB explained that, once settled in California, he opted to obtain a California license to practice marriage and family counseling rather than apply for the “super, super, super tough” license to practice psychotherapy. As a result, he said, he cannot refer to himself in print as a psychologist; “The Liberty Interview: Nathaniel Branden Speaks,” Liberty, September 1999 (vol. 13, no. 9), pp. 41–42.
He had applied for: Jeff Walker, The Ayn Rand Cult (Chicago: Open Court, 1999), p. 156.
obtain certification in New Jersey: Unpublished letter from MR to Kenneth Templeton, September 3, 1958, courtesy of Justin Raimondo; The Ayn Rand Cult, pp. 156–58; “The Liberty Interview: Nathaniel Branden Speaks,” p. 41.
pressure on Rothbard intensified: Murray Rothbard, “My Break with Nathaniel Branden and the Rand Cult,” Liberty, September 1989, p. 30; An Enemy of the State, pp. 125–26.
Educational events were augmented: “My Break with Nathaniel Branden and the Rand Cult,” p. 27; 100 Voices, Howard Odzer, p. 191.
“Why is it you don’t see us more often?”: “My Break with Nathaniel Branden and the Rand Cult,” p. 29.
“Those parties were very hierarchical”: Author interview with Ed Nash, January 6, 2005.
298 “They were absolutely a nightmare”: Author interview with BB, December 16, 2005.
Once, Rand bought a new dining room table: 100 Voices, Shelly Reuben, p. 373.
tragic, “malevolent” Beethoven: Author interview with JMB and Dr. Allan Blumenthal, March 23, 2004.
she described Brahms as “worthless”: Author correspondence with BB, June 26, 2008.
rushed to give away his collection: He gave them to EK (author interview with EK, July 21, 2006).
When not in his studio painting: 100 Voices, Al Ramrus, p. 163.
Rothbard gave Branden a copy: Unpublished letter from MR to Helmut Schoeck, August 30, 1958, courtesy of Justin Raimondo.
Helmut Schoeck, a well-known scholar: Schoeck is best remembered for his 1969 book Envy: A Theory of Social Behaviour. In it, he examined one of AR’s lifelong preoccupations, envy, and defined it as “a drive which lies at the core of man’s life as a social being.” AR made marginal notes in her copy of the book, to the effect that envy is the characteristic of a second-hander, not a universal force that governs the social order (Helmut Schoeck, Envy: A Theory of Social Behaviour [Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Fund, 1987]; Robert Mayhew, ed., Ayn Rand’s Marginalia [Irvine, Calif.: Second Renaissance, 1995]), p. 98.
one from Rand’s attorney Pincus Berner: Mentioned in an unpublished letter from Helmut Schoeck to James Wiggins, August 13, 1958, courtesy of Justin Raimondo.
The paper, titled: Rothbard, “The Mantle of Science,” unpublished paper prepared for the symposium Scientism and the Study of Man, 1958, courtesy of Justin Raimondo.
based on Rand’s fallacy of the stolen concept: An example of “the stolen concept” frequently cited by Rand is the attempt to negate reason by means of reason (Introduction to Objectivist Ethics [New York: New American Library, 1989], p. 81).
“Prior to our break with him”: MYWAR, p. 231.
Rand’s habit of self-promotion: Unpublished letter from Helmut Schoeck to James Wiggins, August 13, 1958; letter from LVM to MR, July 22, 1958. Both courtesy of Justin Raimondo.
discovered what it felt like to be someone: Unpublished letter from George Reisman to Ralph Raico, July 25, 1958, courtesy of Justin Raimondo.
He remained loyal to organized Objectivism: MR later wrote extensively about the rise and fall of the AR movement. A few years before he died, he published “My Break with Nathaniel Branden and the Rand Cult,” which gives a blow-by-blow account of his version of events. Earlier, in an essay called “The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult” (1972; reprinted by the Center for Libertarian Studies, 1990), he analyzed AR’s appeal.
later described his single therapeutic session: The Ayn Rand Cult, pp. 145–46; author interview with Robert Hessen, October 17, 2007.
watched Branden pace the room like a panther: “I’d rather have gone into therapy with Stalin,” Hessen told Duncan Scott of the OHP; author interview with Robert Hessen, November 2, 2007.
301 went to work as Rand’s part-time personal secretary: “The Genesis of a Great Gift,” Robert Hessen’s introduction to the auction catalog “The Papers of Ayn Rand,” Bonhams and Butterfield, November 18, 1998.
She purged him, too: OHP, Robert Hessen, November 10, 2004.
she established the atmosphere: Author interview with Shelly Reuben, November 19, 2007.
“She was very controversial”: OHP, Robert Hessen, November 10, 2004.
to declare their agreement: John Lobler, “The Curious Cult of Ayn Rand,” p. 101. A 1964 NBI brochure stated that the lectures are addressed exclusively to those who have read TF, AS, and FTNI, are in agreement with the essentials of the philosophy presented in these books, and seek an amplification (NBI brochure, 1964).
“I went to a [lecture] once”: Unpublished taped interview with Bertha Krantz, conducted by BB, September 30, 1983.
gave up her job as a junior editor: Earlier, Barbara had worked for Archibald Ogden at RKO in New York.
“If one considers that Ayn was God”: “Ayn Rand and Her Movement,” p. 8.
“the most beautiful woman in the world”: Author interview with Don Ventura, March 19, 2004.
“I learned repression”: TPOAR, pp. 243, 304–305.
“the greatest human being”: MYWAR, p. 226.
struck her as well meaning: BBTBI.
“I saw her change”: Author interview with JKT, May 21, 2004.
“I thought that my fans disappointed and depressed me”: http://www.solopassion.com/node/1257.
At first, no one noticed: MYWAR, p. 209.
arrived by the hundreds every week: About two hundred; OHP, Robert Hessen, November 10, 2004.
stopped giving lectures on college campuses: AR seems to have made no college appearances between mid-1958 and 1960; “Ayn Rand as a Public Speaker.”
“I cannot fight lice”: MYWAR, p. 211.
sp
ent hours playing solitaire: “The Liberty Interview: Barbara Branden,” p. 51.
“John Galt wouldn’t feel this”: “An Interview with Barbara Branden,” p. 8.
“I would hate for him to see me like this”: MYWAR, p. 213. In private notes from 1968, excerpted in Valliant’s TPOARC, AR writes that during this period she experienced “self-protective withdrawal—and I realized that this is a state without any use for one’s mind or rational faculty.”
carrying a jar of Dexedrine: Dr. Allan Blumenthal recalled that AR took Dexedrine, an amphetamine, in the 1950s and 1960s. BB has mentioned that she took Dexamyl (TPOAR, p. 173), a combination of Dexedrine and amobarbital, a barbiturate.
“Oh, these are for Ayn”: Author interview with Roger J. Callahan, November 4, 2003. There were other rumors over the years. For example, in February 1969, a person close to AR and the Brandens wrote a concerned letter to Barbara about rumors that the novelist’s doctor was upping her dose.
“she’d take another two”: Jeff Walker, “Ayn Rand, Objectivism and All That,” an interview with Roy A. Childs, Jr., Liberty, April 1993, p. 33.
“She was wired up”: Author interview with Robert Hessen, October 17, 2007.
“as well as Swiss chocolates”: Author correspondence with BB, June 26, 2008.
Joan Blumenthal recalled that Rand: Author interview with JMB and Dr. Allan Blumenthal, March 23, 2004.
“always had a very elevated pulse rate”: Author interview with JMB and Dr. Allan Blumenthal, September 2, 2004.
the telltale symptoms of suspicion: Everett H. Ellinwood, George King, and Tong H. Lee, “Chronic Amphetamine Use and Abuse,” in Floyd Bloom and Donald Kupfer, eds., Psyhopharmacology: The Fourth Generation of Progress (Nashville, Tenn.: American College of Neuropsycho-pharmacology, 2000).
“The atmosphere was like that of a hospital”: Author interview with NB, May 5, 2004.
withdrew into his painting: MYWAR, p. 212.
some of which she sometimes conceded: BBTBI.
“You are my lifeline”: MYWAR, p. 210.
“disappearing professor” act: TPOARC, RPJ, July 4, 1968, p. 323.
“he had always been arrogant”: TPOAR, p. 304.
“If all of you who look at me”: “Ideal,” Three Plays, p. 177.
She was paralyzed by disgust: TPOAR, pp. 302–3.
“Thinking is all I do”: JD, p. 240.
able to renew their intimacy: TPOAR, p. 304; MYWAR, p. 219.
She was never fastidious: According to RBH, AR’s friend from Chatsworth, California, NB approached BB and “asked her to ask AR to ‘clean up her act,’ though it wasn’t her act he wanted cleaned up.” RBH claimed to have heard this from BB, with whom she became friendly in the 1980s and 1990s. According to RBH, BB confided that “NB found her physically—unclean, not clean;” author interview with RBH, June 8, 2005. When asked if this story was true, Barbara replied, “No comment.”
“I needed all of my resources”: MYWAR, p. 219.
“How is it possible that we can be accused”: MYWAR, p. 209.
“it was more and more true”: Author interview with NB, August 10, 2004.
“the founder of a new and unusual philosophy”: The Mike Wallace Interview, February 25, 1959.
told the same story to both Brandens: The untruth that AR told to Wallace and the Brandens “is puzzling,” said BB in 2007 (author correspondence with BB, 2007).
Mr. Branden had received six hundred letters: The Mike Wallace Interview, February 25, 1959.
dumbfounded that Wallace had devoted half an hour: Author interview with Al Ramrus, March 1, 2007.
“Most of the media”: Author interview with Al Ramrus, March 1, 2007.
enjoyed the interview and admired her courage: Author interview with Mike Wallace, February 15, 2007.
“I remember with amusement her haircut”: 100 Voices, Mike Wallace, p. 156.
he and she dined together: Author interview with Mike Wallace, February 15, 2007.
“creature who sat on her shoulder”: Author interview with Mike Wallace, February 15, 2007.
“slavish followers”: Author interview with Mike Wallace, February 15, 2007.
received an advance copy of the novel: Also, like MR, JKT initially had an adverse reaction to NB. “When I first met Nathan at Ayn’s, my immediate reaction to him was that he might be a wife-swapper in some sense. But then I said, ah, no” (Karen Reedstrom, “Interview with Joan Kennedy Taylor,” Full Context, October 1993, p. 4).
“when the whole world wanted her attention”: Author interview with JKT, May 21, 2004.
“I think she was kinder to people”: “Interview with Joan Kennedy Taylor,” p. 3.
“she respected creative people”: Author interview with JKT, May 21, 2004.
didn’t want to compose atonal music: “Interview with Joan Kennedy Taylor,” p. 3.
pulled up chairs and listened to their conversation: 100 Voices, Mickey Spillane, p. 232.
loved the fact that Spillane’s potboiling plots: BBTBI.
“Grays don’t interest me”: “The Curious Cult of Ayn Rand,” p. 100.
the Los Angeles Times and in other forums: In her private lectures on the art of writing, she often mentioned him as a favorable example of descriptive writing and use of slang. In her short-lived weekly column of commentary in the Los Angeles Times, she devoted a column to his writing, beginning with the sentence, “Mickey Spillane is one of the best writers of our time” (“The Ayn Rand Column,” Los Angeles Times, September 2, 1962).
following their joint appearance: The broadcast aired on October 11, 1961; no videotape seems to have survived.
threw back her head and laughed: Author interview with Al Ramrus, February 7, 2007.
They formed a mutual admiration society: Spillane also met Rand’s followers. “I was never at her place when they weren’t there,” he told an interviewer. “Every time one of us would talk, all [their] heads would follow that person” (100 Voices, Mickey Spillane, pp. 235–38).
“Ayn Rand and I, we don’t have to shrug”: 100 Voices, Mickey Spillane, pp. 235–38.
“vicious injustice on the part of the ‘intellectuals’ “: “The Ayn Rand Column,” Los Angeles Times, September 2, 1962.
“moral cannibals”: AS, p. 928.
Rand paid for her hotel: Letter to Vera Glarner, née Guzarchik, March 2, 1962 (LOAR, p. 595).
deeply impressed by their American cousin’s fame: 100 Voices, Lisette Hassanil, pp. 257–59.
Rand wrote that she missed her: Letter to Vera Glarner, August 4, 1962 (LOAR, p. 599).
hosted a radio program: “Interview with Joan Kennedy Taylor,” p. 3. The station was WEVD, New York.
didn’t comment on Nabokov’s lurid subject: In a March 1964 Playboy interview, AR told Alvin Toffler that she regarded Nabokov as a brilliant stylist but that his subjects and “sense of life” were evil; “The Playboy Interview: Ayn Rand,” p. 40.
“Oh, Nabokov!”: Author interview with JKT, May 21, 2004.
never contacted his sister Olga: Brian Boyd, Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991), p. 388. Interestingly, Boyd describes a speech Nabokov gave at Cornell in 1958 in which he reenacted a love scene from Fyodor Gladkov’s 1930s Russian industrial novel Energiya, about the building of a Russian dam, in which the hero confesses love to the heroine while operating a pneumatic drill. “Social Realism’s ideal love scene—boy and girl with pneumatic drill,” Boyd quotes Nabokov as saying gleefully (p. 360).
“She was very, um, cautious”: Author interview with JKT, May 21, 2004.
Mannheimer turned up in New York: Author interview with BB, June 9, 2006. NB didn’t remember seeing Mannheimer as a client but thought that sending the screenwriter to him “sounded like something Ayn would do;” author interview with NB, April 3, 2008.
appearing anxious, stiff, and visibly frightened: Author interview with BB, June 9, 2006.
having seen almost nothing of Rand: A
uthor interview with BB, June 9, 2006.
fatally shot himself: Obituaries, Variety, March 15, 1972.
“Too bad”: Author interview with Joan Blumenthal, October 10, 2007.
saw little of Frances and Henry: Karen Reedstrom, “Interview with Erika Holzer,” Full Context, February 1996, p. 3.
struck her as a betrayal: Author interview with BB, October 12, 2007.
never had a good word to say: Author interview with BB, December 16, 2005.
the sensation she created: Author interview with Bettina Bien Greaves, December 22, 2006.
Mises’s eightieth-birthday party: William Henry Chamberlain, “Ludwig von Mises at 80,” Wall Street Journal, October 20, 1961, p. 10; My Years with Ludwig von Mises, p. 163. The party was held at the University Club of New York.
“LSD steps up our voltage”: Quoted in Radicals for Capitalism, p. 280.
editing a quasi-religious libertarian magazine: Radicals for Capitalism, p. 276.
“Whenever I wrote anything”: Interview with Thaddeus Ashby, conducted by Wendy de Weese, June 20, 2005.
she attended the awards ceremony and enjoyed herself: Author interview with JKT, May 21, 2004.
three million copies in print: EOWTL, p. 143. Oddly, in spite of the fact that the cold war was at its height and that two years earlier Khrushchev had disclosed the mass killings committed by Stalin at about the time WTL had first been published, the reissued novel attracted little attention. The hardback edition seems to have been reviewed only in the Miami Herald and the Detroit Jewish News (EOWTL, p. 151).
advertising reply card for NBI: The reply card was the brainstorm of Robert Hessen, at that time a graduate student at Columbia University and part-time employee of NBI. Hessen recalls one evening in 1961 or 1962 when AR and NB assembled the Collective and a few other Objectivists to bawl them out for not contributing enough to the advancement of AR’s philosophy. They named Hessen as an example to the contrary, praising his ideas for the reply card, the book service, and the soon-to-be-launched tape transcription service; “I was mortified.” Author interview with Robert Hessen, October 17, 2007.
Ayn Rand and the World She Made Page 68
