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276
LEGACIES
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D.C., shortly after its founding and became an infl uential think-tank as
the capitol tended rightward. By the mid-1980s Cato had replaced the
Libertarian Party as the institution of choice for libertarians who hoped
to create meaningful social change. 72
Rand was left largely isolated in New York. One by one she drove away
the last remnants of the Collective. She stopped speaking to the Hessens
after their Palo Alto Book Service offered for sale a novel by Kay Nolte
Smith, whom Rand had exiled years before. 73 The Blumenthals, who had
nursed her so tenderly through her cancer surgery, broke with Rand
after she harangued them endlessly about their artistic tastes. Next to
go were the Kalbermans, unable to tolerate Rand’s diatribes against the
now despised Blumenthals. Mary Ann and Charles Sures, who lived in
Maryland, were occasional visitors. But only Frank and Leonard Peikoff,
loyal to the last day, remained by her side.
Orthodox Objectivism continued to draw a small audience, and a core
group of serious students clustered around Leonard Peikoff. Rand was
too faded to hold the famed all-night sessions of yore, but Peikoff helped
form another cadre eager to carry her ideas forward. Rand approved two
new magazines, The Objectivist Forum and The Intellectual Activist, run
by her last philosophy students. In the late 1970s she was captivated by
the idea of Atlas Shrugged as a television mini-series. Numerous proposals
to dramatize the work had landed on her desk, but this was the fi rst
time producers were willing to give her full script control. She began
working on the adaptation, which was to be broadcast on NBC, and
had completed most of the script when the project was canceled. In her
spare time she collected stamps avidly and began taking algebra lessons
with a private tutor. 74
The hardest blow came in 1979, when Frank died. The two had been
married for fi fty years. As diffi cult as their union had been, Frank had
never betrayed Rand, never broken her trust or abandoned her in a time
of need. He had been a silent and at times sullen paramour, but he was
unfailingly consistent—and consistency was something Rand valued
above almost anything else. She was disconsolate after his loss, weeping
in her apartment and pestering his niece, her last remaining family contact,
for reminiscences about him as a young man. Making a fi nal television
appearance on Phil Donahue’s show, Rand was sanguine about the
prospect of her own end. She did not believe in life after death, she told
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