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THE REAL ROOT OF EVIL 125
seemed confused, asking, “What relation could a lie about Russia have
with the war effort?” Later she asserted, “I don’t believe the American
people should ever be told any lies, publicly or privately. . . . Why weren’t
the American people told the real reasons and told that Russia is a dictatorship
but there are reasons why we should cooperate with them to
destroy Hitler and other dictators?” 64 She had a real point to make about
honesty in politics, but because she failed to appreciate the wartime context
of Song of Russia, her testimony did little to support the inquiry into
Communist subversion of American movies. Nor was the committee
interested in hearing Rand’s take on The Best Years of Our Lives, declining
to ask her to testify a second day.
In retrospect Rand had mixed feelings about her appearance. She
worried about the morality of government inquiries into Americans’
political beliefs, assuring herself in private notes that the investigation
was warranted because the committee was inquiring into the fact of
Communist Party membership, not the belief in Communist ideals.
That fellow travelers or Communist sympathizers would be swept up
into the dragnet did not worry her. What bothered her was the ineffectiveness
of the whole event, which seemed little more than a charade
to get Congress off Hollywood’s back. Later Rand became convinced
that the hearings had triggered a reverse blacklist against the friendly
witnesses. After HUAC’s investigation many of her conservative friends,
including Albert Mannheimer, had great diffi culty fi nding work in the
industry. 65
Following her appearance in Washington Ayn and Frank continued
on to New York, where she had scheduled a full gamut of literary activities.
Chief among her goals was research for Atlas Shrugged. As the story
developed Rand determined that railroads and steel, pillars of the modern
industrial economy, would lie at the center of her story. As in The
Fountainhead, she conducted painstaking research to make her story
accurate. Her primary contact was with the New York Central Railroad.
She grilled the vice president of operations, took a guided tour of Grand
Central and its underground track systems, and visited a construction
site in upstate New York. The highlight of her visit was a ride to Albany,
where she was permitted to ride in the cab of the train’s engine, an
occasion that prompted the normally reticent Frank to declare, “You’re
marvelous!” In an effusive letter to Paterson, Rand described how the
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