Ayn Rand and the World She Made - Anne C. Heller [316]
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“Moral judgments were required”: Unpublished taped interview with Barbara Weiss, conducted by BB, September 25, 1983.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