To Selma H. Levenberg, of the Ford Hall Forum [Letter 473]

The Ford Hall Forum is a nonpartisan assembly in Boston, presenting nationally distinguished speakers from a variety of fields.

36 East 36th St.
New York City

October 23, 1960

Miss Selma H. Lovenberg
The Ford Hall Forum
80 Boylston Street
Boston 16, Mass.

Dear Miss Levenberg:

Thank you for your letter of October 10. I am pleased to accept March 26, 1961 as the date of my appearance on The Ford Hall Forum.

The topic I should like to discuss is: “The Intellectual Bankruptcy of Our Age” (an analysis of the basic premises, the development and the present state of Western culture, and of the need for a new type of intellectual leadership). This would be based on a forthcoming book of mine, FOR THE NEW INTELLECTUAL: THE PHILOSOPHY OF AYN RAND, to be published in the spring of 1961.

Since I am not a professional lecturer, I do not have a selection of speeches on hand. However, if you have some specific topic in mind, I may be able to prepare it for the occasion. I hesitate to offer you the lecture on “Faith and Force, the Destroyers of the Modern World,” which I delivered at Yale University (also at Columbia University and Brooklyn College), because it has been widely reprinted.

I shall ask my publishers, Random House, to send you the photographs and other material which you requested.

Looking forward to our meeting,

Sincerely yours,

Ayn Rand

AR:rh

AR gave nineteen “Ford Hall” talks between 1961 and 1981, regularly attended by overflow audiences. On April 10, 1977, the Forum held a luncheon in her honor.