Mike Wallace Interview: Ayn Rand (1959)

Source:Open Culture- pre-CBS News 60 Minutes, Mike Wallace had his own interview show on ABC, in the 1950s.

“Yesterday we featured Alain de Botton’s television broadcast on the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Today, we feature another, earlier television broadcast on a much more recently active philosopher: Mike Wallace’s 1959 interview of Ayn Rand, writer and founder of the school of thought known as Objectivism. But should we really call Rand, who achieved most of her fame with novels like The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, a philosopher? Most of us come to know her through her fiction, and many of us form our opinions of her based on the divisive, capitalism-loving, religion-hating public persona she carefully crafted. Just as Nietzsche had his ideas about how individual human beings could realize their potential by enduring hardship, Rand has hers, all to do with using applied reason to pursue one’s own interests.

Mainstream, CBS-watching America got quite an introduction to this and other tenets of Objectivism from this installment in what Mike Wallace calls a “gallery of colorful people.” The interviewer, in the allotted half-hour, probes as many Randian principles as possible, especially those against altruism and self-sacrifice. “What’s wrong with loving your fellow man?” Wallace asks, and Rand responds with arguments the likes of which viewers may never have heard before: “When you are asked to love everybody indiscriminately, that is to love people without any standard, to love them regardless of whether they have any value or virtue, you are asked to love nobody.” Does Ayn Rand still offer the bracing cure for a rudderless, mealy-mouthed America which has forgotten what’s what? Or does her philosophy ultimately turn out to be too simple — too simple to engage with, and too simple to improve our society? The debate continues today, with no sign of resolution.” 

From Open Culture 

“In 1957, a 1,168 page book by Ayn Rand, called Atlas Shrugged, was published. According to one source, Rand was alleged to be a mistress to Philippe Rothschild, who instructed her to write the book in order to show that through the raising of oil prices, then destroying the oil fields and shutting down the coal mines, the Illuminati would take over the world. It also related how they would blow up grain mills, derail trains, bankrupt and destroy their own companies, till they had destroyed the economy of the entire world; and yet, they would be so wealthy, that it would not substantially affect their vast holdings. The novel is about a man who stops the motor of the world, of what happens when “the men of the mind, the intellectuals of the world, the originators and innovators in every line of industry go on strike; when the men of creative ability in every profession, in protest against regulation, quit and disappear.”

If we are to believe that the book represents the Illuminati’s plans for the future, then the following excerpts may provide some insight to the mentality of the elitists who are preparing us for one-world government.” 

Source:Open Culture- Objectivist philosopher Ayn Rand on The Mike Wallace Interview, in 1959.

From Truth Tube  

This photo is from the Mike Wallace Interview with Objectivist philosopher Ayn Rand in 1959. But that video is apparently not available online right now.

Source:Truth Tube- Objectivist philosopher Ayn Rand, on The Mike Wallace Interview in 1959.

Mike Wallace, the famous CBS News journalist who made his mark on CBS 60 Minutes, to me is the best TV interviewer of all-time, or least what I’ve heard, because he could interview anyone, because of his knowledge and the research he did. He was truly dedicated to his craft which is how he was able interview athletes, entertainers, politicians, including President’s, and even mobster Mickey Cohen back in the 1950s on the Mike Wallace Interview.

Mike Wallace could also interview people who were in politics, but people who didn’t currently hold office. People who were outside in the sense that they weren’t public officials, but sill influential to the point that they could influence people in how they think.

Mike Wallace interviewed columnists and other writers like authors people who made a living telling others what they know and what they think about things, professors and other intellectuals. People like Ayn Rand, one of the most if not the most influential people on libertarianism today. Meaning Ayn Rand, who a lot of Libertarian Americans, people like Ron Paul and others and would bring attention to people who had political beliefs that weren’t popular at the time, or even commonly known.

So when Mike Wallace interviewed Ayn Rand in 1959 and interviewing one of the most influential intellectuals on Libertarians and some Conservatives, he wasn’t out of his element. This is no offense to Larry King, but this wasn’t Larry King interviewing Milton Friedman, or someone else with a lot of stature.

Mike Wallace, knew what he was getting into and took the Devils Advocate approach to interviewing Ayn. She was the Objectivist, or Libertarian and he took the side of the let’s say Social Democrat in doing this interview: self-reliance and self-sufficiency, vs collectivism. Not that Mike Wallace was a Progressive, or a Collectivist. I’m not sure what his politics was, but that’s the role he was playing in this interview as the Devils Advocate.

Instead of taking a softball approach and blindly agreeing with everything that Ayn said, Wallace instead questioned  Rand’s philosophy. Not a better interviewer to select from than Mike Wallace to select to give Ayn Rand her first national TV interview. Someone who could interview anyone across the media spectrum, including someone like Ayn Rand.  

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