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== Whittaker Chambers ==

== Whittaker Chambers ==

[[Whittaker Chambers]] is best known for his public exposure of [[Alger Hiss]], the ranking official of the [[United States]] [[Department of State]] who participated materially in the creation of the [[United Nations]], as an agent of the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics]]. But toward the end of his life, Chambers served as senior editor of ''[[National Review]]''. In that capacity he wrote what stands today as the most infamous review ever written of ''Atlas Shrugged''. He titled this review, "Big Sister Is Watching You."<ref name=chambers>Chambers W, "Big Sister Is Watching You," ''National Review'', December 28, 1957. Hosted at National Review Online, published January 5, 2005. Accessed May 1, 2009. <http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/222482/big-sister-watching-you/flashback></ref>

[[Whittaker Chambers]] is best known for his public exposure of [[Alger Hiss]], the ranking official of the [[United States]] [[Department of State]] who participated materially in the creation of the [[United Nations]], as an agent of the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics]]. But toward the end of his life, Chambers served as senior editor of ''[[National Review]]''. In that capacity he wrote what stands today as the most infamous review ever written of ''Atlas Shrugged''. He titled this review, "Big Sister Is Watching You."<ref name=chambers>Chambers W, "Big Sister Is Watching You," ''National Review'', December 28, 1957. Hosted at National Review Online, published January 5, 2005. Accessed May 1, 2009. <https://www.nationalreview.com/articles/222482/big-sister-watching-you/flashback></ref>

Chambers considered the novel a caricature of the political situation in and of the [[United States]] in the year of publication. He assumed, perhaps correctly, that Rand intended to set the book at a time ''contemporary with its publication.'' (See [[Atlas Shrugged#Time setting]] for details.) And so he believed Rand guilty of wild, unjustifiable exaggeration of the types of policies that [[liberal]] politicians were recommending (and in some jurisdictions, enacting) at the time, and of their deleterious effects.

Chambers considered the novel a caricature of the political situation in and of the [[United States]] in the year of publication. He assumed, perhaps correctly, that Rand intended to set the book at a time ''contemporary with its publication.'' (See [[Atlas Shrugged#Time setting]] for details.) And so he believed Rand guilty of wild, unjustifiable exaggeration of the types of policies that [[liberal]] politicians were recommending (and in some jurisdictions, enacting) at the time, and of their deleterious effects.

== Jason Lee Steorts ==

== Jason Lee Steorts ==

The most recent extended review of ''Atlas Shrugged'', titled "The Greatly Ghastly Rand," appeared in the August 30, 2010 issue of ''National Review'' and in fact came from its managing editor, Jason Lee Steorts.<ref name=Steorts>Steorts JL, "The Greatly Ghastly Rand," ''National Review,'', August 30, 2010, pp. 43-48. <http://web.archive.org/web/20140827150523/http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/244381/greatly-ghastly-rand-jason-lee-steorts></ref> Steorts said that he sought to determine for himself why ''Atlas Shrugged'' remained popular. He drew no definite conclusion, because he concluded that the work is a most unworthy example of the novelist's craft, and indeed could not be more offensive had Rand deliberately intended to insult all who disagreed with her.

The most recent extended review of ''Atlas Shrugged'', titled "The Greatly Ghastly Rand," appeared in the August 30, 2010 issue of ''National Review'' and in fact came from its managing editor, Jason Lee Steorts.<ref name=Steorts>Steorts JL, "The Greatly Ghastly Rand," ''National Review,'', August 30, 2010, pp. 43-48. <https://web.archive.org/web/20140827150523/https://www.nationalreview.com/articles/244381/greatly-ghastly-rand-jason-lee-steorts></ref> Steorts said that he sought to determine for himself why ''Atlas Shrugged'' remained popular. He drew no definite conclusion, because he concluded that the work is a most unworthy example of the novelist's craft, and indeed could not be more offensive had Rand deliberately intended to insult all who disagreed with her.

He begins with his most strenuous single objection to the work: Rand's treatment of the passengers of the ill-fated Comet in the [[Taggart Tunnel]] disaster. He confirms that when Whittaker Chambers famously accused Rand of saying,{{cquote|To a gas chamber&mdash;go!}}that Rand was talking specifically about a group of three hundred people who died in a mass transportation disaster. In no account of such a disaster in real life&mdash;whether it was the sinking of RMS ''[[Titanic]]'', the destruction of the two Boeing 747 airliners in a runway collision at Santa Cruz de Tenerife, or any of a number of commercial-aviation accidents&mdash;has anyone suggested that the casualties of that disaster deserved what they got. (The obvious exception is a [[terrorist]] strike, which is an act of mass [[murder]] after which the murderers typically blame their victims.) Yet Rand names sixteen specific examples of passengers that committed some [[sin]] or other against individual freedom, declared that everyone aboard the train "share[d] one or more of these ideas," and then cut to the scene with [[Dagny Taggart]] and [[Francisco d'Anconia]], at the end of which a breathless radio announcer gives the details of the disaster. The outraged Steorts declared that he could read no further.

He begins with his most strenuous single objection to the work: Rand's treatment of the passengers of the ill-fated Comet in the [[Taggart Tunnel]] disaster. He confirms that when Whittaker Chambers famously accused Rand of saying,{{cquote|To a gas chamber&mdash;go!}}that Rand was talking specifically about a group of three hundred people who died in a mass transportation disaster. In no account of such a disaster in real life&mdash;whether it was the sinking of RMS ''[[Titanic]]'', the destruction of the two Boeing 747 airliners in a runway collision at Santa Cruz de Tenerife, or any of a number of commercial-aviation accidents&mdash;has anyone suggested that the casualties of that disaster deserved what they got. (The obvious exception is a [[terrorist]] strike, which is an act of mass [[murder]] after which the murderers typically blame their victims.) Yet Rand names sixteen specific examples of passengers that committed some [[sin]] or other against individual freedom, declared that everyone aboard the train "share[d] one or more of these ideas," and then cut to the scene with [[Dagny Taggart]] and [[Francisco d'Anconia]], at the end of which a breathless radio announcer gives the details of the disaster. The outraged Steorts declared that he could read no further.