Ayn Rand could hardly believe the religiosity of Buckley. Upon meeting her, he related to a friend,trying to imitate her accent, he said that she said to him, "You don't really believe that religious stuff?" Which not only revealed his true lack of intellectual curiosity, but his bigotry as well.

Leonard Peikoff wrote a rebuttal to Chambers which Buckley refused to publish. Buckley was always a pretentious, pompous pseudo-intellectual in promotion of religious traditionalism. He couldn't admit what Atlas Shrugged was and his followers still can't. They republished the Whittakers mud sling on the centennial of Ayn Rand's birth and again on the 50th anniversary of Atlas Shrugged -- the typical Buckley obnoxious taunting anti-intellectualism. Ordinary people everywhere have continued to discover AS despite the Buckleyite smear campaign misrepresenting it.

Leonard Peikoff's devastating rebuttal to Buckley's cohort is published as "Reply to Whittaker Chambers" in Essays on Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, ed by Robert Mayhew. https://estore.aynrand.org/p/233/essa... The Chambers smear continues to remind us what Buckley and his followers are.

When someone uses that many words to make that thin a point, it is almost certainly written as a desperate response from a weak viewpoint.

She who laughs last ...

Unfortunately, Buckley, with whom I agreed about half of the time, slipped in to "good Catholic boy" mode too often, with all of that religion's closed mindedness. Chambers, like a reformed drunk, went from one extreme, communist, to another, religious zealot. The old red adage was that religion is the opiate of the people. I would argue that communism, fascism and all the other collectivist "isms" are in fact also opiates. They make people feel good without addressing the underlying cause of the pain. They are an easy fix as a way of avoiding dealing with real problems.

Despite Buckley’s reputation as an intellectual, I found him arrogant and far from a thinking individual. Back in 1961, not knowing better and wanting a conservative to speak at the University of Oregon, I gathered up enough contributions to bring him to the campus. I picked him up at the Eugene airport, drove him to the University, spent time with him, and drove him back to the airport.

Among the many things I found wrong were not only his conclusions (we can all make a mistake) but in his processes. He would start from his premises (in economics, by the way, he was a big fan of Henry George) as if they were axioms and then require dialogue from there. He never permitted his premises to be questioned. This is consistent with a person born and raised with religious dogma, but I found him to be a phony.

Buckley's flunkey hatchet man is of the same cloth as the "intellectual" slugs that pontificate on the editorial and review sections of the Washington Post. Of course Rand creates a fiction to illustrate her philosophy. Of course she uses bigger than life characters to represent her heroic ideas. Of course she creates the most vile characters to represent the underlying evils that are destroying our chance of having a rational society.

I have heard all the references to liking Atlas as a teenager but then "growing up". Rand does deal in blacks and whites but surrendering to a world of shades of gray without protest is not to have lived at all.

On my first reading of Atlas I thought it contained some interesting ideas but that the story was like a Sky King TV segment and the level of competence of heroes were impossible to emulate. The second time I realized that the characters were composites of types of people that were on the right track. That the plot was just an instrument for illustrating the ideas and that the ideas were very profound. By the third time I read Atlas, I was focused on the words of the characters in their speeches, Reardon's trial, Francisco's money speech and "This is John Galt". Additional re-readings are for pleasure and refreshment. I no longer worry about the juvenile aspects of the story nor do I get intimidated by the characters. Oh and the book never seems to be a 1100 page chore, but more like a modern day Bible.

"The mischief here is that the author, dodging into fiction, nevertheless counts on your reading it as political reality."

Which it, now, is.

Chambers is a Statist Gasbag.

I think that its a bad idea to associate too much, or trust too much, anyone who is really into religion. You never know what their "god" will tell them to do.

When it comes to muslims, I really want nothing to do with them. I dont want to help them at all, since they openly say they want to kill infidels (me !!)

Here's why I disagree with Chambers: : https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...

What a belligerent, antagonistic, pedantic fool.

The review by Whittwker Chambers was a lot of hot air. Yes, it took some fortitude to read all that morass. Critics are not visionary, they can't see the future. Everything that is happening today is what Ayn Rand wrote about. She saw man (men & women) could become producers and innovators if the govt would get out of the way. The astronomical regulations that is imposed on American Industry stifles innovation and productivity.

To this, I would have to say "Read it, yourself and draw your own conclusions...don't just take another's word for it".

That is less a review, than an arrogant diatribe, seeking to discredit the book and author with nothing more than philosophical ranting. yet isn't this the same national review that almost 50 years later is attacking Trump? Makes me sort of want to like Trump...not enough, but sort of..

RE: "author, dodging into fiction"
Interesting point especially when falling back on religion is the biggest dodge of all in a debate.

My lip was curling the entire time I read this (and I don't tend to make that expression much). This reminds me of Bertram Scudder's article "The Octopus" - a bucket of slime emptied in public. Was it really necessary to waste that many words on such a ridiculous premise? That's time I'm never getting back.

Interesting commentary. But is it not so... that in order to point out a dichotomy one must paint in black and white. The in between only complicates the message...they'll end up on one side or the other or hopefully realize their wishy washy path and straighten out.

I've been this route, in degrees of probability but the black and white of it is: the only true division in society is "Conscience" (which is much more than just a voice) "those that have and those that have not,
Now the time comes for the middle, the reasons and the outcome of each...which is much harder and complicated than I ever expected.

I think, Ayn, found herself here but realized it was necessary in order to awaken the middle...cause right generally stays right and left rarely strays but the middle are curious so might they be the one's that read here books?

As for his take on "Robin Hood", rarely does anyone get it; Robin stole from the looters, the government, the usurpers and gave back to those they stole from. The tax payers, the true value creators, the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker.

Well, not being an atheist (having, unlike so many folk nowadays, sufficient proof that humans are not the end all and be all) I'm sure Mr. Whittaker, when he thinks of this article, is in a state of eternal face-palming.

Buckley was a right wing Statist. It shouldn't surprise anyone that there was a hit piece in his magazine back then. Guess what? He's dead and no longer has a say. If you are critical of the recent articles, is it because you believe National Review moved to the too far Left, or too far Right?