On 6/12/2008 at 3:19 PM, iplaydrums24 said:
I was reading through The Virtue of Selfishness, and I decided to look up Nathaniel Branden to learn some more about him after reading his articles. To my surprise, I learned that he and Rand had an longstanding affair while they were both married to other people. I was shocked to learn this, and even more surprised to learn that Rand terminated her friendship with Branden when she learned that he was with another women (after divorcing his wife and ending his relationship with Rand) against her wishes.
Ayn Rand’s husband was Frank O’Connor, an actor and painter she married on April 15, 1929 and stayed married to until his death in 1979. The affair was with Nathaniel Branden, 25 years her junior, and “adultery” understates what happened: Rand told O’Connor and Branden told his wife Barbara in 1954, and both spouses agreed, reluctantly, before the relationship became sexual in January 1955.
The timeline:
- 1929: Rand marries Frank O’Connor.
- 1950: Rand meets Nathan Blumenthal, later Nathaniel Branden, then a 19-year-old fan.
- 1953: Branden marries Barbara Weidman. Rand and O’Connor stand up at the wedding.
- 1954: Rand and Branden disclose the relationship to both spouses and ask permission.
- 1955 to 1958: the sexual relationship runs, then lapses.
- 1968: Rand learns Branden concealed a relationship with Patrecia Scott. She ends all association and publishes “To Whom It May Concern” in The Objectivist, issue dated May 1968.
- 1979, 1982: O’Connor dies, then Rand.
On the hypocrisy charge in the first post: the 1968 break was not over Branden loving another woman. It was over years of lying about it while still presenting himself to Rand as her romantic partner. Her stated grounds in “To Whom It May Concern” were his departure from Objectivist principles, his financial dealings, and “deliberate deception.” She did not disclose the romantic relationship in that article. That she kept it secret in public while breaking with him over deception is the strongest form of the criticism, and it is a fair one. It is also a different criticism from the one that opened this thread.
Provenance matters here more than on any other Rand topic. The affair is documented in Barbara Branden’s The Passion of Ayn Rand (1986) and Nathaniel Branden’s Judgment Day (1989, revised as My Years with Ayn Rand, 1999). James Valliant’s The Passion of Ayn Rand’s Critics (2005) disputes the Brandens and quotes Rand’s 1968 journals. Anne Heller and Jennifer Burns, both 2009, were the first outside biographers working from the archives. The dates and the disclosure above are not in dispute. Motive, and what Frank O’Connor actually felt, are. Anyone presenting those as settled is selling you a side.
Related: the Rand and Branden dispute itself and whether The Passion of Ayn Rand is a big deal.