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that he was smarter than other publishers and had built a great company from scratch, without subsidies or special favors. She was delighted with his answer. She explained that Atlas represented a moral defense of capitalism and contained a complete, unique, and radically anti-Left philosophy and was impressed when Klopfer, Cerf’s distinguished business partner, shrewdly remarked that a moral defense of capitalism would have to be in conflict with Judeo-Christian ethics. The jovial Cerf surprised her by announcing, “I find your political philosophy abhorrent.” But, he added, “If we publish you, Miss Rand, nobody is going to try to censor you. You write anything you darn please, and we’ll publish it.” No one else had dared to tell her this, Cerf remarked in his posthumously published memoir, At Random. As a result, “I came out very high” on her grid. When he proposed an auction among her four top choices for publisher, each of whom would read the manuscript and respond with editorial comments on a given date, she was so impressed with his self-confidence that she chose him and Random House almost on the spot.

“They spoke as I would want publishers to speak,” she told Barbara Branden after the lunch: They faced ideas openly, heard what she had said, were enthusiastic about her earlier work, and answered all her questions. Barbara had rarely seen her so pleased.

And the men were pleased with her. They appreciated her quick, inventive mind and moral courage. When all three had read the nearly completed manuscript, they arranged for another meeting. As soon as Rand and Alan Collins seated themselves in Cerf’s office, Cerf declared, “It’s a great book. Name your own terms.” She and her agent had discussed what to ask for: an advance of $50,000, a 15 percent author’s royalty, a guaranteed first printing of 75,000 to 100,000 copies, and a $25,000 advertising budget. To all of these terms the men agreed, adding that the length of the novel should not exceed 600,000 words. Business settled, Cerf told her that upon reading part I, chapter 8, “The John Galt Line,” in which Dagny and Rearden ride the rails straight into each other’s arms, he ran out of his office into the hallway, shouting, “It’s magnificent!” Klopfer reported that he had begun to look at factories and smokestacks, and at his own success, with a new appreciation. Back in her apartment, she exclaimed, “This is life as it should be and ought to be—and, for once, is!” To Barbara, she said, “They didn’t pretend to be converted, but they knew these were important ideas and they were very affected by the book. And Bennett was chortling [over] how they’d antagonize their neighbors” by publishing it. Of course, Cerf could not imagine just how hostile and brutal the antagonism would turn out to be.

She and Cerf quickly became friends. He and his wife, Phyllis, attended dinner parties on East Thirty-sixth Street, where they met the Brandens and other members of Rand’s circle, and the O’Connors spent occasional weekends visiting the Cerfs in their weekend house near the village of Mount Kisco in New York. On first meeting Phyllis, who happened to be Lela Rogers’s niece, Ginger Rogers’s cousin, and a former Hollywood actress, Rand recognized her; to Phyllis’s amazement, the smoky-voiced writer recalled once having dressed her for a movie role in the RKO wardrobe department. Rand met other Random House authors and some of Cerf’s wide circle of acquaintances. Years later, he remembered the mischievous pleasure he, like Haydn, took in introducing her to liberal friends. “What I loved to do was trot her out for people who sneered at me for publishing her. Ayn would invariably charm them. For example, Clifton Fadiman”—one of her models for Ellsworth Toohey in The Fountainhead—”sat up with her until about three in the morning one time.” George Axelrod, the man who wrote The Seven Year Itch—”he’s always being [psycho]analyzed,” Cerf noted—”at the end of a long, long evening disappeared with Ayn into another room. We couldn’t get George to go home. We were at Ayn’s for dinner. Later