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WHO IS JOHN GALT? 1957–1968
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demanded to be taken on its own merits, and most book reviewers
found little to like.
Politics undoubtedly played a role, too. Rand’s book was a full frontal
assault on liberal pieties. She liked nothing more than to needle her
antagonists and was often deliberately provocative, even infl ammatory.
One character declares Robin Hood the “most immoral and the most
contemptible” of all human symbols and makes a practice of seizing
humanitarian aid intended for poor countries, giving it instead to the
productive rich. Another hero proudly assumes the nickname “Midas”
Mulligan, while the discourse upon “money, the root of all good” continues
for several pages (387–91). Then there were the hopelessly hokey
parts of Atlas Shrugged, which even Rand called “those gimmicks”: mysterious
dollar-sign cigarettes smoked by the cognoscenti, a death ray
machine operated by the government, the gold dollar-sign totem that
marks Galt’s Gulch, the repetition of the question, “Who is John Galt?” 12
Criticized for her lack of humor, Rand was actually having plenty of fun
with Atlas Shrugged. But liberals did not get the joke.
Conservatives were no less offended. The most notorious review of
Atlas Shrugged was written by Whittaker Chambers and published in
National Review, the most infl uential conservative magazine of the time.
Chambers had become a household name through his testimony against
Alger Hiss in a Soviet espionage case and his subsequent best-selling
memoir, Witness. Once a dedicated Communist, Chambers had shifted
far to the right, becoming a mentor to William F. Buckley Jr., who asked
him to review Atlas Shrugged as his fi rst assignment for National Review.
Buckley, who disliked Rand, surely knew what the outcome of such an
assignment would be. In Witness Chambers had written movingly about
his religious conversion and his belief that only God could rescue mankind
from the evils of Communism. It was not hard to predict how he
would react to Rand, an avowed atheist. Chambers was uninterested in
the book and reluctant to write such a negative review, yet at Buckley’s
request he plunged into battle with an article entitled “Big Sister Is
Watching You.” 13
In his vitriolic review Chambers noted Rand’s popularity and her
promotion of conservative ideals such as anti-Communism and limited
government, but argued that because she was an atheist her underlying
message was faulty and dangerous. According to Chambers, Rand’s
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