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WHO IS JOHN GALT? 1957–1968
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people who are puzzled by organized society.” His censure was mingled
with anxiety about Rand’s infl uence, for Vidal recalled that in his campaign
for the House of Representatives she was the one writer “people
knew and talked about.” 11 Having been earlier scored by leading conservative
thinkers, Rand now took a drubbing at the hands of establishment
liberals. Newsweek, the New Republic, America, and the Christian
Century all piled on, publishing harshly negative reviews of For the New
Intellectual.
The reaction to Rand fell neatly into a pattern established years
before. Since the advent of Joseph McCarthy, Wisconsin’s famously anti-
Communist senator, liberals had trouble treating conservative ideas as
legitimate. A prominent 1955 volume, The Radical Right, set the tone
by treating libertarianism and anti-Communism as psychological syndromes,
an expression of paranoia or status anxiety. 12 Accordingly liberal
commentators derided Rand and her following as a fringe element with
little to contribute to the nation’s intellectual life. But Rand’s popularity
appeared impervious to attack by the most esteemed members of the
establishment. The more the guardians of respectability criticized Rand,
the more irresistible she became to conservatives who loved thumbing
their noses at the ascendant liberal order. 13
Accustomed by now to negative press, Rand plunged forward with
two new projects in 1962: The Objectivist Newsletter and a syndicated
column for the Los Angeles Times. The newspaper column lasted barely
a year, when it was canceled by mutual agreement. Rand found it diffi
cult to meet the column’s weekly deadline. Its frequency did, however,
encourage her to explore a range of topics that might otherwise have
escaped her comment. The Times column inspired some of her fi rst
writing on American popular culture, an interest of hers since arriving
in Hollywood. She wrote a touching obituary of Marilyn Monroe,
calling her an “eager child” who projected “glowing innocent sexuality
. . . uncorrupted by guilt.” 14 According to Rand, Monroe’s suicide signifi
ed a hatred of values that was the dominant style of the century. The
theme of America’s bankrupt culture was becoming ever more prominent
in her writing, fed by her new interest in modern philosophy and
the lingering trauma of Atlas Shrugged’s reception.
Unlike NBI, which was wholly owned by Nathan, The Objectivist
Newsletter was a joint undertaking between Ayn and Nathan. The two
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