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LEGACIES
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consolidation swept over the movement, spearheaded in large part by
SIL. After years of irregular publication SIL severed its connection to
Wollstein’s Individualist, offering members in its place a subscription
to Reason magazine. Originally started as a handmade mimeographed
Objectivist newsletter out of Boston University, by 1973 Reason had
almost six thousand subscribers, making it the most successful libertarian
magazine by far. Reason was the fi rst libertarian magazine since
Rand’s Objectivist to garner a subscription base in the thousands. As
Reason developed, fewer and fewer small homegrown libertarian magazines
appeared. Professionally produced and designed, Reason charted
a careful course away from libertarian extremism toward greater mainstream
visibility and respectability.
Reason owed much of its circulation to a coup scored in 1971, when
it published Nathaniel Branden’s fi rst post-Rand interview. As Branden
well knew, the libertarian movement offered him a chance to refurbish
his reputation among the Objectivist rank and fi le. Branden was coy
about his experiences with Rand, but clearly indicated his growing differences
with her philosophy. He still considered her “one of the greatest
minds in history” and claimed, “[She is] the greatest novelist I have ever
read,” but he spoke frankly about the fl aws he saw in her personality
and her philosophy. Branden was contrite about his own role in what
he called the “intellectual repressiveness” of NBI, and he offered his latest
book, The Disowned Self, as a way to “undo some of the damage” he
admitted to “caus[ing] students of Objectivism in the past.” Though he
still considered himself an expert on psychology, Branden had lost some
of his overbearing moralism. When the magazine asked if sex without
love was moral he responded, “What, am I your mother?” 68 The interview’s
overall tone refl ected the general libertarian stance toward Rand,
who was now seen as a fi gurehead or a respected elder rather than a
source of direct guidance. She was a totem and ideal to be admired,
but not worshipped. Reason was interested in Rand but not beholden
to her.
By 1973 The Ayn Rand Letter was slipping badly. Issues were often months
behind schedule and Rand’s standards of discourse had plunged. In a
review of John Rawls’s Theory of Justice Rand dropped the pretense that
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