I Chose Liberty - Ludwig von Mises Institute

146 I Chose Liberty: Autobiographies of Contemporary Libertarians
that Hammarskjöld had been a less than honest man and had suggested that he cheated at
cards—the phrase, “had an ace up his sleeve” comes to mind. This attack on Hammarskjöld’s
personal integrity so infuriated Hayek that he wrote a blistering letter to Buckley denouncing
his maliciousness and asking that National Review stop sending him future issues of the
magazine. Buckley responded to Hayek’s letter, regretting Hayek’s reaction and pointing out
that the characterization was only “un jeu de mot,” but it made no difference to Hayek, whom,
I believe, remained only on the most formal terms with Buckley for the rest of his life.
I indicated that Hayek was given to a certain level of formality, and this was reflected
in his appearance. He was extremely distinguished-looking, with an air of courtly elegance
about him that, at least in my case, discouraged close familiarity. Whenever we spoke, I
always I called him Professor, even though the last time I saw him I was in my forties and
we had known each other for over twenty years.
Hayek was not an effusive person, but I suspect that he genuinely liked me. There were
two occasions when he was demonstratively warm. The first occurred at a going-away dinner
that was held for him by the Committee on Social Thought on the eve of his departure from
Chicago in the spring of 1962. I was chosen to speak on behalf of his graduate students, and
among the things for which I thanked Hayek was his generosity in lending his name to the
New Individualist Review, a publication several of his students on the Committee had started.
I was then the journal’s editor-in-chief, and as such it fell upon my shoulders to turn
down an article that had been submitted by John Nef, the Committee’s chairman. Nef,
who had done excellent work in European economic history and had become one of the
leading scholars in his field, had, by this point in his life, almost totally lost touch with
reality. I assume that he was allowed to continue on as chairman of the Committee because
the position was one in which he could do little if any damage. It was, however, somewhat
of a strain on the few students on the Committee who had anything to do with him. In
one case I went through a whole tutorial with him in which he referred to me by another
student’s name. On leaving his office, I realized that I had forgotten my umbrella and once
again knocked on his door. This time he greeted me by my correct name although it had
been only a matter of a couple of minutes since I left.
The situation with respect to his submission to the New Individualist Review put
the editors in an impossible situation. There really were no circumstances that could
justify the journal carrying Nef’s crackpot article, which was a plea that the nations of
the world choose Jesus Christ to replace Dag Hammarskjöld as Secretary General of the
UN. Nef seemed to take it quite well when I told him that the editors did not think that
our small student journal was an appropriate home for a piece of this sort, which deserved
far wider distribution.
However, he made his feelings abundantly clear at the farewell dinner given for Hayek
a month later when he referred to Hayek’s graduate students—that is, the group that edited
NIR, as unfeeling, calculating machines whose only interest in life revolved around questions
of profit and loss, and that none of us was worthy of having Hayek as our supervisor.
Needless to say, everyone in the room, especially Hayek, was stunned by these comments
and Hayek, in his own remarks went out of his way to speak glowingly of us and, to my
great pleasure, especially of me.