Anne Heller - Ayn Rand and the World She Made

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Rothbard gave Branden a copy:Unpublished letter from MR to Helmut Schoeck, August 30, 1958, courtesy of Justin Raimondo.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one from Rand’s attorney Pincus Berner:Mentioned in an unpublished letter from Helmut Schoeck to James Wiggins, August 13, 1958, courtesy of Justin Raimondo.

The paper, titled:Rothbard, “The Mantle of Science,” unpublished paper prepared for the symposium Scientism and the Study of Man, 1958, courtesy of Justin Raimondo.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Rand’s habit of self-promotion:Unpublished letter from Helmut Schoeck to James Wiggins, August 13, 1958; letter from LVM to MR, July 22, 1958.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discovered what it felt like to be someone:Unpublished letter from George Reisman to Ralph Raico, July 25, 1958, courtesy of Justin Raimondo.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.

spent 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.