Martin Anderson meets Ed Hudgins

Martin Anderson is well known both to Objectivists and to others who value freedom and favor limited government. Anderson and his wife, Annelise, were associates of Ayn Rand, and he wrote for The Objectivist Newsletter.

Anderson is the author of the groundbreaking 1964 book The Federal Bulldozer, which documented the destruction of neighborhoods by urban-renewal programs. He was also the late President Ronald Reagan's domestic policy adviser, and in that position he performed a singular service to freedom by scuttling a plan for a national identification card. When the attorney general made this proposal in a cabinet meeting, the president asked for comments. Anderson noted that such cards could be costly to produce, could be lost, and might be easily counterfeited. So why not simply tattoo a number on every person's wrist? By showing in such a simple manner the ultimate consequences of giving that power to the government, he killed the plan on the spot.

The Andersons recently co-edited a book with Kiron K. Skinner, Reagan: A Life in Letters, in which they reproduce a letter from President Reagan wherein he notes, "Am an admirer of Ayn Rand." They also produced a companion volume, Reagan In His Own Hand. At the Heritage Foundation's Resource Bank meeting in Chicago, attended by TOC Washington director Ed Hudgins, the Andersons discussed their work with some 6,200 handwritten documents from the fortieth president. These show him to be well read, thoughtful, and passionately interested in the ideas of freedom—in contrast to the claims of his critics. Did Reagan ever read Atlas Shrugged? The Andersons told Hudgins that they don't know, but they're still sifting through thousands of documents and hope to discover whether there's a closer intellectual connection between the former president and the founder of Objectivism.