Barbara Branden, Robert Hessen and the 1998 Rand Auction


Michael Stuart Kelly

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Marc; Joan Joyce and Jean Drew I have never heard of. Alfred Kolborg was described as being the head of the China Lobby. He was an importer from China before the Communists took over and strongly supported Chaing Kai Shek. He had a solon in the 1950thsthat many rightwingers in New York City attended including Miss Rand. Hank Holzer is Henry Holzer who was one of Miss Rand's lawyers. Henry Holzer was also something of an enforcer at NBI. Harry Browne was also a commenter on finanicial mattters in the 1970ths. I don't have the list in front of me so after I look at the list I will comment on more names. As you can see I have an interest Ayn Rand's life and Objectivist history.

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A few of the others:

Nozick, Hunt, Hook and Rasmussen are all academic philosophers. Nozick and Hook are both dead. Hook was a teacher of Peikoff's at NYU and wrote a nasty review of For the New Intellectual in the NYT Sunday book review section which prompted Nathaniel Branden to reply at length in the form of an ad for NBI. I don't think any of them knew her personally.

Alan Collins was in the publishing business, her agent or editor or what have you at one point. Barbara Branden's biography could give you more detail.

Ron Paul is a congressman from Texas and an enthusiastic libertarian. I think he was the only Republican to vote against going to war in Iraq.

Joan Blumenthal is an artist, one of the original Rand circle. Her husband is Allan, the psychiatrist. Her first husband was Alan Greenspan.

Poole is part of the Reason Foundation and a board member of TAS / TOC.

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Thank you so much ! I still have the other 2 boxes too and I will get a complete list of everything sometime over the holidays when I have a little more time on my hands.

This is so exciting and to be with people who love Rand is wonderful.

Thank you all so much.

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O T Nelson is arthur of The Girl Who Owned a City. A novel for teenagers about a teenage who is one of few survivors of a neclear war. If I have gotten this wrong somebody correct me. I can't wait to hear about the other two boxes.

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Thank you and it even makes it more fantastic knowing that when I get everything organized and am able to post all items here , I have this amazing support group that is so willing to help me put the pieces togeather.

What will be so interesting is when I can start to scan some letters and post them so others will be able to enjoy these with me. It will help even more with my enjoyment.

Our school year up here ends on Friday, and I will be able to take a little time away from my office and starting after Xmas I will be able to take a few days and go through everything so thourougly so I appreciate everyones patience .

Thanks again,

Marc

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  • 1 month later...

Dear all,

I really have to apologize as I have not added anything yet to this list.

Things have just been busy-all in a good way- and I have not been able to devote the necessary time on this very important project.

I do though promise that I will be catagorizing everything in the very near future and I very much hope that in the weeks to follow as I do list items and names here that my friends will continue to be so supportive in sharing with me their knowledge the items and names listed.

Thanks agian,

Marc

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Marc; Sorry I just looked at your posts and it all came back. I don't have a printer so I must go to a library and print out your posts. After I do that I should have more names I can identify.

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  • 1 month later...

Friends,

For those who have an interest, I have finally completed organizing all these treasures !

I will post all my findings this week for sure, maybe as early as Tuesday or Wednesday.

I have all the tapes and the names and who these people are , and the relations to Rand, with the expection of 10 or so-where I will ask for your help.

Marc

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Robert Campbell: "I wonder whether Barbara can enlighten us further about the following:

"'I see the piles of tapes of the interviews I conducted as research for my biography, The Passion of Ayn Rand, research that occupied two-and-a-half of the most fascinating years of my life. Those years led me to create a unique oral history of Ayn’s life that can never be repeated or superseded. The people whose voices one hears on these tapes, some famous and others unknown, delineated Ayn’s remarkable life from her early years in Soviet Russia to a last conversation with her the night before her death in 1982…'

"If copies of these tapes were made available to Leonard Peikoff for archival purposes, as per "the deal," has Peikoff made their presence in the Ayn Rand Archives known to anyone else? In particular, was James Valliant informed about them when he was working on his opus?

"If Valliant knew about the tapes and was allowed to access them, but chose not to use anything from them in PARC, his failure to use any of these interviews would consitute an unanswerable indictment of his scholarship."

I'm so sorry not to have answered questions in this thread earlier. Robert, tapes of these interviews were not included in the material given to Peikoff for his archives. He received only copies of material whose ownership he had fallaciously questioned: that is, the manuscript pages of Atlas (and Bob Hessen's manuscript pages). However, Valliant certainly knew these tapes existed, but before rushing into print he chose not to contact me, not to ask me a single question, not to interview any of the Collective except Peikoff and Mary Anne Sures, and, to the best of my knowledge, not to speak to any of the more than 200 people I interviewed and whose names are in my book.

Barbara

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Chris: "Barbara; Can anyone find out who the boy is in that picture. Maybe if we can get an exact date we can get a clue. One farthur note I think the Ruth Hill mentioned as renting Ayn Rand's Chatsworth house is Ruth Beebe Hill who is mentioned in PAR and wrote the American Indian novel. "

The boy in the picture is the son of Joan Kennedy Taylor. And yes, Ruth Hill is Ruth Beebe Hill, author of the sensational bestseller Hanta Yo.

Barbara

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Peter:"Curious about the Fountainhead play (items 5905 and 5906). Does Barbara Branden have the rights to put it on in public?"

No, I don''t. My contract with Rand specified that both of us would have to agree to any production of the play -- which means that Peikoff would have to agree. Don't hold your breath, even though Rand said that she liked it better than her screenplay of The Fountainhead..

Barbara

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Marc, as I told you in a private email, I'm delighted that this material is in the hands of someone who treasures it as you do.

You wrote: "I am a little afraid of listening to one in case of the tape breaking. I have decided to wait and get a professional to copy them maybe onto a cd or something for backup."

You are very wise to have them copied to CDs. They must be very fragile so many years after they were made. When I listened to my interviews with Rand in 1982 -- which were made on reel-to-reel tapes in 1961 -- I was petrified throughout that they would break or collapse into dust. And one of them did break, to my utter horror. I rushed to a technician who performed a small miracle; he was able to patch the tape without losing single word. But soon after, I had them transferred to cassette tapes, and I'm preparing to take my own advice and have the cassettes transferred to CDs.

About your list of names: You can get the correct spellings from the Acknowledgments in Passion, where I list the people I interviewed. When you post your complete list, I'll fill in the information you'll still need about who these people are.

You wrote: "What will be so interesting is when I can start to scan some letters and post them so others will be able to enjoy these with me. It will help even more with my enjoyment."

Marc, as I told you in a private email, I don't believe that legally you can post these letters. As I understand it, a letter sent to you (or purchased by you) is your property legally, but the content remains the property of the writer and cannot be published without the writer's consent -- except for "fair use." I recommend tht you check this with a lawyer.

Barbara

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Peter: "While we're on the subject of tapes, does anyone know if Rand's interviews with the Columbia University radio station are still around?"

I haven't seen them mentioned anywhere for a very long time, nor have I seen them offered for sale. I have a few of them, but I don't know what happened to the rest. It's likely, of course, that they are in the ARI archives. It may be -- and this is only a guess -- that ARI does not offer them for sale because often Rand appeared with someone -- Nathaniel, Barbara, John Hospers, etc. -- who later was excommunicated.

Barbara

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I think I've said it before but ARI sounds so Soviet. We don't have tapes of Ayn Rand talking because the individual had been purged. There was a book called The Missing Commissar showing pictures were people had been removed after purges in the Soviet Union. People were also added. This sounds so like ARI.

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Barbara,

Thank you so much for the advice and for helping me here.

I actually have not yet copied the tapes to CD's but am currently interviewing certain individuals at companies that specialize in this work, hence we have only heard the odd tape but I have been very careful in the process.

I agree about the letters and I will start today with simply posting everything in those 4-5 boxes.

I once again state here that I am astonished as to how organized you are and how the contents in these boxes look like they were from yesterday not from 40 years ago !

I will now post what I have,

Marc

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AUDIO TAPES

RADIO AND TV INTERVIEWS WITH AYN RAND (metal box)

Johnny Carson, 11/2/67 and 12/13/67 (two copies)

side 2: “The New Fascism,” Ford Hall Forum, 4/18/65

Edwin Newman, Speaking Freely, 3/4/72 (two copies)

Bob Grant Radio Show, WMCA, NY, 2/15/73 (two copies)

side 2: Tomorrow Show, 7/2/79

Phil Donahue Show, 5/15/79 (two copies)

Phil Donahue Show (second appearance), 1980

CBC Ideas radio show, undated

TAPED LECTURES AND SPEECHES BY AYN RAND (metal box)

“Of Living Death,” 1968, plus Q&A (four cassettes)

“Apollo and Dionysus,” 1969, plus Q&A (four cassettes)

“The Anti-Industrial Revolution,” Q&A (two cassettes)

“Ethics in Education”

“The Sanction of the Victims,” 1981

TAPED LECTURES AND SPEECHES BY BARBARA BRANDEN (metal box)

“Ayn Rand in Each of Us,” 1987

“Who Is Ayn Rand?” 1982

“Future of Freedom,” 1983

“In Defense of Ayn Rand”

“An Evening with Barbara Branden,” 1986 (two cassettes)

TAPED ORAL HSITORY INTERVIEWS FOR THE PASSION OF AYN RAND, BY BARBARA BRANDEN

Alphabetized, in two boxes:

with Thaddeus Ashby (two cassettes) (friend of Rand’s in the 1940s)

with Nathaniel Branden (six cassettes)

Nathaniel Branden-Albert Ellis debate, 1967 (two cassettes)

with Shirley Maxwell Black (1920s; fellow resident of the Studio Club)

with Jim Blanchard (financier) and Doug Casey

with Robert Blieberg (editor of Barron’s)

with Joan Blumenthal (part of Rand’s inner circle in the 1950s-60s)

with Fern Brown and Minnie Goldberg (Rand’s Chicago relatives)

with Harry Browne

with Tommy Carr (1930s) (a friend of Ayn and Frank in the 1930s)

with Doug Case

with John Chamberlain (journalist; early supporter of Rand)

with Ed Clark

with John Cody

with Mrs. Alan Collins (wife of Rand’s long-yime lieterary agent Alan Collins)

with Lillian Courtois (USAID employee who helped Rand and her sister reunite in 1973)

with Lillian Davidson

with Esther Deutch

with Jean Drew (student of Frank Lloyd Wright?) (three cassettes)

with Albert Ellis (psychologist, Rand adversary in the 1960s)

with Don Ernsberger and Dave Walters

with Nancy Fooshee

with Betinna Bien Greaves (student of Ludwig von Mises)

with Daniel Greene

with Mirra Guinsberg

with Ted Hall (brother of Muriel Hall and friend of Isabel Paterson)

with Muriel Hall (best friend and executor of the estate of Isabel Paterson, Rand’s closest friend and mentor in the early 1940s)

with Marjorie Hanson

with Ruth Beebe Hill (friend of Rand’s who rented the Neutra house until Rand Sold it in 1971) (two cassettes)

with Muffy Hiss (old friend of Rand’s)

with Sidney Hook (anti-Soviet, pro-socialist professor of philosophy at NYU with whom both Barbara Branden and Leonard Peikoff studied in the 1950s (two cassettes)

with Hank Holzer (Ayn Rand’s lawyer)

with John Hospers (philosopher and Rand friend in the early 1960s)(two cassettes)

with Marc Jaffe (Hollywood producer who bought rights to Atlas Shrugged)

with Jean Joyce (1920s; fellow resident of the Studio Club)

with Elayne and Harry Kalberman (Nathaniel sister and her husband; part of the inner circle)(two cassettes)

with Bob K. (sp?)

with Joe Kalt (sp?)

with Manuel Klauser

with Donald Klopfer (publisher, Random House)

with Bertha Krantz (copy editor, Random House)

with Roger Lee (psychologist and friend of N. Branden’s in the 1960s)

with Candace Leigh

with Tibor Machan (Rand admirer) (three cassettes)

with Wallace Matson

with Rick Matthews

with Gerald McCauley (founder of E.F. Hutton and Rand friend)

with Douglas and Cindie Messenger (five cassettes)

with Barney Miller

with Charles Murray

with Nevada Murray

with O.T. Nelson

with Edwin Newman (broadcaster who interviewed Rand)

with David Nolan

with Robert Nozick and Lester Hunt

with Kerry O’Quinn (Rand follower in the 1960s)

with Congressman Ron Paul (Libertarian from Texas)

with “people in education with an Objectivist background” (three cassettes)

with Millicent Patton (friend of the O’Connors in the 1930s)

with Bob Poole (taught Rand to dance in the 1960s)

with Jack Portnoy (Chicago relative)

with Rick Randolph

with Doug Rasmussen (Rand admirer) (two cassettes)

with Andrea Rich (founder of Laissez Faire Books)

with Ralph Roseman

with Nora Rosenbaum (Dobischeva) (Ayn Rand’s sister)

with Murray Rothbard (libertarian with who Rand had a falling out in 1957-58)

with Virginia Sale (1920s; fellow resident of the Studio Club)

with Julius Schulman

with Margie Shilcoat

with Mrs. Frances Smith

with Kay and Phil Smith (Rand friends in the 1970s)

with Dean Ahmed and Ellen Stutzman

with Mimi Sutton (Frank’s niece) (nine cassettes)

with Joan Kennedy Taylor (Rand friend)

with Don Ventura (artists; former Rand follower)

with Margit von Mises (wife of Ludwig von Mises, whom Rand knew)

with Mike Wallace (broadcaster; interviewed Rand)

with Beatrice Waller

with Marjorie Wheaton (two cassettes)

with Jack Wheeler (Rand follower)

with Barbara Weiss (Rand’s secretary in the 1960s and 1970s) (three cassettes)

with Meta Carpenter Wilde

with Walter Williams

with Anne Wortham (two cassettes)

Miscellaneous (after “z”): BB’s talk with overseas operator; untitled; cemetery; unreadable; Ayn Rand funeral; [unreadable “Mysterious Valley”]

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Also these,

Thaddeus Ashby (two cassettes)

Fern Brown and Minnie Goldberg (Rand’s Chicago cousins)

Tommy Carr (1930s)

Mrs. Alan Collins

Bertha Krantz (copy editor, Random House)

Millicent Patton

Virginia Sale (Studio Club)

Mimi Sutton (Frank’s niece) (nine cassettes)

Ayn Rand funeral

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Friends,

The names where there is no comment besides means that I have not found out who they are. I have not yet cross referenced in Barbaras' great book yet though as I just read her comment now.

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Ted Hall was the husband, not brother, the of Muriel Hall; and Gerald McCauley was not the founder of E.F. Hutton (Gerald Loeb, another friend of Rand's, was). I don't know who Gerald McCauley was.

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BOX # 1: PAPER FILES

FOLDERS:

AYN RAND’S NATURALIZATION AND IMMIGRATION PAPERS

AYN RAND’S WILL AND TESTAMENT

AYN RAND OBITUARIES

NORA ROSENBAUM, RAND’S SISTER—Letters from 1982

ORIGINAL AR NOTES FOR ATLAS SHRUGGED

EARLY CORRESPONDENCE: Four letters from Barbara Branden (then Weidman) to Ayn and Frank circa 1951.

[PLANNED PRODUCTION OF BB’S PLAYSCRIPT OF THE FOUNTAINHEAD, SUMMER, 1968]

FOLDERS:

PRODUCTION: Production notes about Barbara Branden’s planned dramatic version of The Fountainhead, 1968, never produced.

BUDGET: Projected costs for play, above.

LIMITED PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT: Financing for play, above. Signed by 22 limited partners, Nathaniel Branden, and Wilfred Schwartz. Limited partners include Barbara Weiss ($1,000), Lonnie Leonard ($500), Allan Greenspan ($500), the O’Connors ($2000), and others.

CONTRACT BET. AUTHOR AND DRAMATIST: Setting for rights and responsibilities.

CONTRACT BET. PRODUCER AND DRAMATIST: ditto.

“THE FOUNTAINHEAD”: THE PLAY: Contracts and correspondence re: 1968 planned production.

CASTING: Contracts and correspondence re: play.

MEDICAL INSURANCE: ditto.

STAFF: ditto.

THEATERS: ditto.

PROMOTION: ditto.

[THE BREAK WITH BB AND NB, 1968]

FOLDERS:

AR OPEN LETTER: Ayn Rand’s published “To Whom It May Concern,” The Objectivist, May 1968, and drafts and published copies of Nathaniel and Barbara Branden’s subsequent reply.

THE BREAK (NON-STUDENTs): Letters about the Ayn Rand-Branden Break from Mary Ann Sures, Nathaniel Branden, Barbara Branden, Jonathan Hirschfeld and others.

THE BREAK (STUDENTs): Letters about the Break from students of Objectivism.

STUDENT LETTERS (two folders): More of the above.

HIRSCHFELDS: Fascinating letters about the Break from Nathan’s sister Florence Hirschfeld and her sons Jonathan and Leonard.

ROEDER/BERGER: Legal correspondence between the Brandens and their lawyers about rights and responsibilities arising from the Break.

SPEIGAL AND HOLZER: 1969 correspondence re: conflict between Ayn rand and Nathaniel Branden over ownership of NBI tape recordings of Branden’s recorded lectures.

FINAL MEMOS: Documents concerning the closing of NBI.

LAVERY: Newspaper clippings about Emmet Lavery’s 1947 million-dollar lawsuit against Ayn Rand, Lela Rogers and others for slander on the radio; Q&A about Rand’s testimony to HUAC.

MISCELLANEOUS FOLDERS

FOLDERS:

ELOISE HUGGINS: 1992 correspondence between Barbara Branden and Ayn Rand’s former housekeeper concerning the fact that after 17 years in Rand’s employ, Rand left her nothing in her will.

ASSORTED LETTERS FROM THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY ARCHIVE: Copies of correspondence with Benjamin Stolberg, Ann Watkins, and others.

PLASTIC BAGS IN BOX #1

FIRST PLASTIC BAG: Letter from Barbara Branden to Ayn Rand, August 9, 1981; correspondence between Barbara Branden and Sidney Hook and between Ayn Rand and Sidney Hook (undated); et al.

SECOND PLASTIC BAG: Copies of correspondence about and copy of “The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult,” by Murray Rothbard.

THIRD PLASTIC BAG: Copies of Ayn Rand’s correspondence with William Mullendore, 1949-57; inscription of We the Living to Cecil B. DeMille; miscellaneous photos of Frank in movie scenes; copy of Ayn Rand’s first letter to Nathaniel Branden.

FOURTH PLASTIC BAG: Magazines with articles and clippings about Ayn Rand; playbill from 1973 production of “Penthouse Legend”; miscellaneous correspondence, inc. from Mimi Sutton and Fern Brown, and a letter to Nick Carter; transcript of 1979 Edwin Newman interview with Rand.

FIFTH PLASTIC BAG: Copy of Butterfield & Butterfield auction catalogue, 11/18/98.

SIXTH PLASTIC BAG: Miscellaneous newspaper clippings about Ayn Rand.

SEVENTH PLASTIC BAG: Assorted research materials for Barbara Branden’s The Passion of Ayn Rand, including original NBI materials, letters to Dmitri and Helena Nabokov (re: Rand’s friendship with Vladimir Nabokov’s sister Olga); an unidentified student’s notes from a private lecture series on Objectivism given by Ayn Rand; and more.

BRUIN 1950: Articles from the UCLA campus newspaper, by Nathaniel and Barbara Branden.

TIBOR MACHAN: Correspondence bet. Nathaniel Branden and Tibor Machan, a professor who was an admirer of Objectivism.

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BOXES # 2:

COPIES OF MANUSCRIPTS AND GALLEYS OF BOOKS:

THE MYSTERIOUS VALLEY, by Maurice Champagne, in French. The was a book AR loved as a child.

Three Plays and a Short Story, by Ayn Rand: “Ideal,” “Penthouse Legend” (also known as “The Night of January 16th”), “Think Twice,” and “The Simplest Thing in the World (story).

Play script of “The Unconquered” (based on We the Living), by Ayn Rand.

Key passages from Atlas Shrugged.

Two sets of galley proofs for The Passion of Ayn Rand, by Barbara Branden.

Barbara Branden’s notes on Ayn Rand’s lecture series on Fiction Writing, 1958.

1938 English edition of Anthem.

“A Letter from Ayn Rand” to readers of The Fountainhead.

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BOXES 3 AND 4

BOOKS

The Man Who Laughs, by Victor Hugo

Ninety-Three, by Victor Hugo

The Mysterious Valley (translated from French), by Maurice Champagne (Rand’s favorite book in childhood)

Is Objectivism a Religion? by Albert Ellis (the psychologist who debated Nathaniel Branden)

Who Is Ayn Rand? by Nathaniel and Barbara Branden

Held for Orders: Tales of Railroad Life

Calumet K, by Merwyn-Webster (Rand’s “favorite” novel)

By Ayn Rand:

The Night of January 16th (paper)

We the Living (paper)

Anthem (paper)

The Fountainhead (paper)

Atlas Shrugged (paper)

The Virtue of Selfishness (paper)

Philosophy, Who Needs It

Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (paper)

For the New Intellectual (paper)

Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (paper)

The Romantic Manifesto

Atlas Shrugged (paper)

The New Left (paper)

Playboy Interviews (collection)

Russian editions of We the Living, The Fountainhead, and

Atlas Shrugged

Foreign edition of We the Living; unidentified foreign edition

Five bound volumes of The Objectivist and a bound volume of Essays and Lectures

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