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LOVE IS EXCEPTION MAKING 215
The success of NBI and Rand’s new fame transformed the Collective
from a small band of intimates into a much admired and watched ingroup.
New York NBI students knew them all by sight. Nathan was
“tall, striking, his hair cascading in blonde waves over his forehead and
his eyes sparkling like blue ice.” (Less fl atteringly, other Objectivists
remembered Nathan’s “Elmer Gantry” style and called him a “great
showman.”) 4 Barbara, cold and remote in her bearing, looked the part
of a Rand heroine with her delicate features and pale blonde hair. Alan
Greenspan, nebbish and awkward, was an occasional lecturer, offering a
course in the Economics of a Free Society, and Leonard Peikoff, hovering
in Nathan’s shadow, taught the History of Philosophy.
When new NBI tape transcription courses debuted in far-fl ung cities,
Nathan would fl y in like a rock star to deliver the fi rst lecture. When Ayn
accompanied him once to Los Angeles, an overfl ow audience of eleven
hundred crowded several rooms to hear them talk. Their tours on behalf
of NBI not only energized the faithful, but helped Nathan maintain control
over his sprawling empire. The institute’s business representatives
were carefully vetted; they served as the offi cial representatives of NBI
to the vast majority of Rand’s students, who would never see her or
Nathan in person. The tours gave Nathan a chance to hire, meet with,
and supervise the work of this core stratum. Paid by the number of students
they enrolled, NBI’s business representatives, already enthusiastic
Objectivists, had further incentive to spread Rand’s ideas. 5
Relationships among the Collective were now codifi ed by residence
and employment. The O’Connors, the Brandens, and the Blumenthals
had all moved into the same building on East Thirty-fourth Street, which
also housed the NBI offi ces and Nathan’s private offi ce. Many of Rand’s
inner circle worked for her or an Objectivist enterprise. In addition to
the magazine, NBI launched a book service and sold reproductions of
romantic art. Barbara Branden, NBI’s executive director, oversaw operations
and taught her class on effi cient thinking. Lecturing gigs at NBI paid
well, as befi t a capitalist establishment. Nathan and Allan Blumenthal
received the bulk of their therapy clients from NBI students. Robert
Hessen, then a graduate student in history at Columbia, became Rand’s
secretary. Members of the Collective were not only friends, they were
neighbors; they were not only neighbors, they were coworkers. Breaking
into this tight circle was impossible for most NBI students.
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