Get Ayn Rand Playboy Interview

Playboy featured some of the most important figures of the day, including Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, and Walter Cronkite, and appearing on the magazine's pages guaranteed their words and message would reach an audience who might otherwise miss the point.

The resulting exchange, published in the September 1962 issue, became the first official Playboy Interview and kicked off a remarkable run of public inquisition that continues today—and that has featured just about every cultural titan of the past half century.

The other day, while stumbling around the Internet, I came across the first official Playboy interview — that of Alex Haley's 1962 conversation with Miles Davis.

Playboy featured some of the most important figures of the day, including Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, and Walter Cronkite, and appearing on the magazine's pages guaranteed their words and message would reach an audience who might otherwise miss the point.

The theme of Atlas Shrugged, ing to Ayn Rand, “is the role of the mind in man's existence.” It is the mind, the story shows, that is the root of all human knowledge and values — and its absence is the root of all evil.