“It’s great to see someone who ‘gets’ The Fountainhead. I was an associate of Ayn Rand and a friend in her final years, so in her name I thank you.”
“... fenced on all sides, Banyan Woods offers a gated entry with guardhouse, harkening back to the safe havens we all knew in childhood.”
“An executive has the right to make buckets of money for himself. In doing so it is to everyone’s mutual benefit from a janitor to a secretary to a consumer. This seminar explains the producers’ motive for making money. We unmask the envy that motivates your enemies.”
“Rand hero lookalike Brook. ‘To the extent America abandons Israel, it abandons itself.’ ”
“Most communists are Jewish. [True, with qualification.] Most professors are Jewish. [False.] Jews are intellectuals, so they dominate any intellectual movement. [False.] Jews dominate the anti-Zionist movement. [It may be true. More are affected, and not all are of Mr. Brook’s ilk.] I wouldn’t be surprised if Jews head up Holocaust denial. [Good grief. Anyway “Holocaust denial” is a package deal.] Jews are intellectual; they gravitate towards ideas. ... I think they’d certainly gravitate towards a set of ideas that make sense.’ ”
“Ayn Rand herself commented that Israel was one of the few causes she ever voluntarily supported. The West turning against Israel – which she saw occurring in the late 1960s and early 1970s – was the West committing suicide.”
“... with its socialist policy, ridiculous political system, constant external threats, I didn’t think it was the place I could make the most of my life.”
“Our goal is to strengthen the Jewish community nationwide, raise awareness while creating a united voice as “One.” Our efforts will help expose local Jewish/Israeli businesses across the U.S., connecting and creating an opportunity for a strong networking platform.”
“... the meetings are dominated and the range of acceptable discourse is delineated by [here begins a long list ending with] ... assorted international educrats and researchocrats in and out of government. No discussion in the hallowed halls of the Mont Pelerin Society of U.S. imperialism or the Bush war crimes, for instance, or of the financial crimes committed by the Federal Reserve Bank ... ¶ Not all of this can be blamed on Hayek ... He had increasingly lost control of the Mont Pelerin Society already long before his death in 1992.”
...
“There had been skepticism concerning the Mont Pelerin Society from the beginning. Ludwig von Mises, Hayek’s teacher and friend, had expressed severe doubt concerning his plan simply in view of Hayek’s initial invitees: how could a society filled with certified state-interventionists promote the goal of a free and prosperous commonwealth?
“Despite his initial reservations, however, Mises became a founding member of the Mont Pelerin Society. Yet his prediction turned out correct. Famously, at an early Mont Pelerin Society meeting, Mises would walk out denouncing speakers and panelists as a bunch of socialists.”
“Yaron Brook ... wears a bulletproof vest every time he speaks in public. He is afraid that someone is going to assassinate him due to his support for Israel. ... I am not making this up. He said this in my presence at an ARI event.”
“For my 15,000 word essay on how to defend America (and Israel) against Islamic terrorism, see: [link to “ ‘Just War Theory’ vs. American Self-Defense”]”
(Not to be confused with Scott McConnell of The American Conservative magazine or the one that had been in the Bush Administration.)
Famous for uttering “Let’s Roll” in an ARI Op-Ed on the day of the Iraq invasion.
Leonard Peikoff
Born 1933, Canada. Met Ayn Rand when he was 17. Left Canada in 1953 and eventually became a U.S. citizen. Lived in the same city as the former headquarters of ARI, Irvine, California, and now lives in Laguna Hills, California. (ARI moved to nearby Santa Ana in 2018, coincidentally after they lost their largest donor, Carl Barney.)
Though not a physician ARI announcements always use the title “Dr.” (ARI writers denounce mainstream higher education yet seem proud of their own degrees.) He has a doctorate in Philosophy from New York University, 1964.
From ARI’s website FAQ page (accessed February 2008): “Dr. Leonard Peikoff is Ayn Rand’s legal and intellectual heir ... .” In Mr. Peikoff’s essay “Fact and Value” he refers to himself as “Ayn Rand’s intellectual and legal heir.” Ayn Rand never publicly stated that Mr. Peikoff was her “intellectual heir.” She designated him the sole heir to her estate.
Founded ARI in 1985 about three years after Ayn Rand’s death. August 2008 ARI opened an office in Alexandria, VA near Washington, D.C. calling it the “Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights” – ARC for short – evidently referring to your individual right to be forced to pay for the support of Israel, the invasion of the Hitler country of the day, and countless immigrants legal and illegal. The Center has since closed.
Mr. Peikoff is the author of The Ominous Parallels (1982). According to his then wife Amy (Objectivism Online Forum, 19 January 2004):
“Rand read over the Ominous Parallels as Leonard was writing it. I’ve seen pages of early drafts marked up in her hand.”
A man who wrote a book about the parallels between America today and Germany during the rise of the Nazis now helps promote an American police state. Ten years later he had the chapters dealing with Germany republished unchanged as a separate book, The Cause of Hitler’s Germany (2014). Spread throughout on a dozen pages are quotes from Hermann Rauschning’s The Voice of Destruction (also known as Hitler Speaks and Conversations with Hitler 1940) yet a year after OP came out the Swiss historian Wolfgang Hänel proved that Rauschning’s book was a hoax. Nonetheless Mr. Peikoff retained all those bogus quotes.
When asked if he would change anything in OP if he were writing it today he said he would emphasize more the religious element.
Mr. Peikoff’s second book was Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (1991), based on recorded lectures overseen by Ayn Rand in 1976. The hierarchical presentation of the book is original with him, there also seem to be some notions of his own – you will look in vain among Ayn Rand’s works for his idea of “contextual truth” (“certainty through ignorance” as one wit remarked). Contains gratuitous referential vulgarity (later repeated by Harry Binswanger) as if anyone besides college professors and intellectual jerks read such trash. However there are some worthwhile points in the book. There is little hint of the disaster to come.
He is also the author of many talks, articles, several recorded lecture series, and the book The DIM Hypothesis (DIM is an acronym for Disintegration-Integration-Misintegration. See Presidential Elections – ARI: 2004 on this website.)
From the open letter “To Whom It May Concern” of November 15, 1994 by George Reisman, who had been a member of ARI’s Board of Advisors before being expelled:“Dr. Peikoff’s failure to urge the policy of containment to Peter Schwartz was all the more surprising in that under the charter of ARI he possessed absolute veto power over all of the Institute’s policies ...”
The above is from the time of the George Reisman affair. In 1993 ARI’s Board of Directors, on which sat Harry Binswanger and Peter Schwartz, decided to pay Misters Binswanger and Schwartz about $3,600 ($6,400 in 2020 dollars) each per week to teach at ARI’s Objectivist Graduate Center for about a month and half.
Mr. Reisman and his wife Edith Packer, both on ARI’s Board of Advisors at the time, advised by questioning the propriety of this. (1) Assuming ARI was incorporated in California where it was headquartered, Misters Binswanger and Schwartz could not legally cast deciding votes on projects in which they had a pecuniary interest – though it turned out ARI was, more expensively, incorporated in Pennsylvania which had no such restriction, (2) the money could be better spent, (3) Mr. Schwartz had no expertise in one of the subjects he would teach.
After this Mr. Binswanger, Mr. Schwartz, Michael Berliner (executive director of ARI at the time) and Mr. Peikoff denounced the Reismans, kicked both off the Board of Advisors and eventually out of ARI, refused to promote Mr. Reisman’s then forthcoming book Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics (which Mr. Schwartz and John Ridpath had previously praised in advance of publication), and required everyone associated with ARI – who wished to remain associated – to break with the Reismans, while refusing to give any reason for all this other than vaguely proclaiming the Reismans “immoral.”
The details are complicated. Whatever you think of Mr. Reisman and his wife – on some non-economical subjects Mr. Reisman today is as bad as ARI – the behavior of their opponents at ARI was ridiculous. See ARI vs. George Reisman.
As a business that organized Objectivist conferencesYaron Brook’s Lyceum International filled the breach left by the subsequent demise of Mr. Reisman’s Jefferson School.
Then there is the David Kelley affair. Mr. Kelley had written some good books on philosophical subjects, but after praising a venomous biography of Ayn Rand by one of her former associates (I skimmed the first quarter of the book in a bookstore, all I could stomach of its pretense at admiring), was expelled from official Objectivist circles. The reason ARI gave, however, was not his praise of the biography, rather that earlier he had lectured at a libertarian gathering (even though in the lecture he exhorted libertarians to change their ways) and later had promulgated his idea of tolerance. Mr. Kelley then founded, in 1990, a group competing with ARI, first calling it the Institute for Objectivist Studies (IOS), then The Objectivist Center (TOC) and now The Atlas Society (TOS). Regarding current political events it’s as bad as ARI.
Speaking of venomous Ayn Rand biography, James Valliant wrote a book in response to such (PARC 2005) under the auspices of ARI (Mr. Peikoff gave him access to Ayn Rand’s journals, including entries that hadn’t been published before). I’m not keen to read about unhappy details of Rand’s private life but from what little I’ve read of Mr. Valliant’s book he seems closer to the truth than his critics.
In some places he overstates his case, like a bad trial lawyer. His prosecution would have been more effective had the journals just been quoted en masse (faithfully) together with the minimum of purely factual background material necessary to make sense of it – factual, not evaluative – then the reader could draw his own conclusion. Mr. Valliant’s own evaluation could be segregated in a chapter at the end.
On reading some of the quotes in the book from Rand’s journal she appears to be a foolish woman rationalizing her actions. Obviously she should have divorced her husband. That she was lied to by her corespondent is no excuse. I don’t know which is worse, cheating on your husband behind his back or in front of his back.
(Mr. Valliant claims – SOLO Forum, June 2008, though he may edit or delete his posts – that he can reorder someone’s words and it is still a quote “so long as the meaning is undistorted ... .” “To reorder words within the quotation of a phrase is not ‘misquoting’ someone.” – even if there is no indication to the reader that a change was made. He says such reordering is “standard practice.” One wonders where. Clearly the gentleman is not a scholar.)
Mr. Peikoff hosted a talk radio show 1995 to 1999 (toward the end it featured Andrew Lewis, the producer, more than Mr. Peikoff) which was also broadcast over the Internet. Mostly it was a good show but there were cracks foreshadowing things to come – we comment on some of them in another article. A crack not mentioned there: he once replayed a song attributed to Monty Python – a “South Park moment” you might say – vulgar and trashy (see Andrew Bernstein above). There were a couple of other such moments on other of the shows. At the time I just “tuned it out,” but in truth it revealed a telling lack of taste.
In one of the last lectures of “Objectivism through Induction” (taped) Mr. Peikoff says that he “loved” the movie E.T. I haven’t seen this movie (the movie posters show a grotesquely ugly creature – multiculturalism among the stars) but know from trustworthy reviewers that it puts trash talk in the mouths of children, while projecting a fulsome, inauthentic sentimentality.
Near the end of 1998 Mr. Peikoff accused Robert Hessen of stealing Ayn Rand’s handwritten drafts when Mr. Hessen had known her personally. The accusation preceded a scheduled auction of Ayn Rand memorabilia, including the allegedly stolen manuscripts, organized by the author of the aforementioned biography. Mr. Peikoff was forced to retract his accusation after it proved false. Mr. Peikoff's original accusation was not totally groundless however, as years before Mr. Hessen had been dishonest about the first copy of Atlas Shrugged off the press.
Despite endorsing Bush, through ARI, in 2000, during the 2004 presidential and 2006 congressional elections Mr. Peikoff declared that Objectivists should vote Democrat because the Republicans will set up a Christian theocracy.
Approaching the 2008 presidential election, Mr. Peikoff denounced Ron Paul, who was running for the Republican nomination, in his podcast posted December 23, 2007. He claimed to know nothing about Ron Paul and relied on Yaron Brook’s assessment denouncing him. See Presidential Elections – Ayn Rand & ARI: 2008 on this website. Approaching the 2010 congressional elections he said vote Republican.
Until October 2016 Mr. Peikoff broadcast a weekly pre-recorded podcast. One in February 2012 caused quite a stir, which you can read about at: Leonard Peikoff’s “Presumed Consent” Podcast.-oOo-On March 5, 2024 Mr. Peikoff’s daughter initiated legal proceedings to have him, then aged 90, declared incompetent and put in conservatorship. The following is from an open letter allegedly by Peikoff describing what he thinks is happening, undated but appearing in several places on the Internet, including Facebook, on dates ranging from August 17 to September 4, 2024. James Valliant, who put the letter online, says it is authentic. In this section we omit our external quote marks.
...
I am outraged ... at a new assault against me – an assault instigated by my daughter, Kira Peikoff ... Based on outright lies and ... innuendo which she has offered about me to a court of law, she has petitioned the government to place me under a conservatorship. ... Kira’s petition, if she wins, obliterates all my rights as an American citizen.
... She is asking the court to declare officially that I no longer have mental capacity, and therefore I cannot take safe care of myself in any or all realms. Therefore, she holds, I need a government-appointed conservator to oversee and manage my entire life i.e., an individual to approve or veto in advance any of my decisions, and I, as a matter of law, would have no choice but to obey. ...
...
Why is my daughter taking such an evil and destructive action against me? From the evidence I have accumulated in the past months and in certain cases years, the answer is twofold. 1) Kira is upset that after I die, she will no longer get all my lifetime savings. When I remarried, I decided to bequeath my Estate (50/50) to my beloved wife, Grace, and to Kira. 2) So, Grace, in Kira’s opinion, has stolen from her both my love and “her” money. Yes, it is true. Kira regards a bequest in my will – of my money while I am still alive – as already her money.
The case is even more irrational. Due to Kira’s relentless demands, I have already given her a sizable fraction of my Estate, which leaves me with not enough to pay for my present legal expenses which were undreamed of when I gave her the money. For Kira, though, these gifts were not enough, they did not satisfy her. ... I now think that giving her these gifts was a weak and stupid action on my part. Especially since she is now using these gifts to pay her high-priced lawyers – whose fees she can meet only through the very money that I gave her. ...
What does it add up to about Kira? In my understanding, it means that in her dealings with me, Kira is motivated by three desires: Greed, Jealousy, and Revenge. (She launched the petition for a conservatorship shortly after I told her about the change in my will).
...
... Kira’s first attack was to petition for an Emergency Conservatorship. This means that the court should grant her desire to enslave me immediately. There was a court hearing - Kira demanded that a conservator be placed over me at once because, I guess, of all the evils waiting in the wings to explode, if and when I am set free.
The normal procedure is to have the wife appointed by the court, but Kira demanded that the court use her nominated conservator ... . Kira in her delusion did not expect me to have the competency or desire to respond. Instead, I was fully present (my wife, Grace, beside me). I think the Court heard my voice loud and clear. I objected to this senseless conservatorship and exposed her lies. Outcome of Kira’s first attack: The judge denied that any emergency existed. I established my competence, at least unofficially, AND won his agreement on the emergency issue! At that point, Kira was stopped, albeit temporarily, in her rush to shackle me.
Once accused of mental incompetency, in order to keep his legal “protector” at bay, the victim faces an uphill battle – a painful trudge through the legal system’s endless procedures not only riddled by costs, but also by the anxiety triggered by all the legal machinations that it creates continuously, month after month, day after day. And I have been advised that the case may continue to 2025. I wake every day to this “ground zero” and to the question when, if it does, will the axe fall?
... do you see the contradiction? In the name of “the accuser and the government protecting me,” they have submitted me to very high amounts of stress in multiple arenas. I have been put through hours of legal procedure, and hours-long mental capacity tests which I am required to pay for at $900 plus an hour, stripping from me my dignity and making my life miserable and even fearful of the final verdict to come – who knows when?
...
When Kira was asked about this on Facebook, her reply (no longer online) was:
Thank you for your concern. This is a private family matter that will be determined by a judge, not the court of public opinion. All I will say is that my father’s statement is libel, and contains many mistruths about me. He neglected to mention that his new wife is a nurse caregiver who was hired from an agency and that she has used controlling tactics to influence him and isolate him from his entire family, many friends, and longtime professionals. We will go to trial in March [2025]. As one example, he purchased the $3.7M house in secrecy and quitclaimed the deed to her (this is public record) before there was any marriage, while she was drawing a salary from him as a caregiver. This is in violation of CA probate codes which consider such asset transfers to caregivers to be presumptive fraud.
Though this affair should have been a private matter, the open letter made it a public one. “Quitclaim” means to transfer ownership without money changing hands. In other words Peikoff gave the multimillion dollar house to the woman as a gift. In another social media post Kira wrote:
The last few weeks have been hell for me. I wish more people would have the simple decency to stay out of a private matter and let the courts do their job. And thank you to those who have expressed reservations about snap-judging a matter they cannot possibly understand, especially when so many of the facts presented are false.
I deeply miss my father, the man who unconditionally loved me for 38 years. Not a day goes by without the heavy pain I now carry in my heart. I dream of him often and it’s always the way he used to be, the loving and steadfast, kind father I knew, not the man who has now become unrecognizable. My children ask to see their grandpa one last time and I cannot give them that. We are all gutted.
Searching the Internet reveals a San Diego County Superior Courts docket for| Petitioner / Plaintiff: | Kira Peikoff Beilis |
| Proposed Conservator: | Marilyn Kriebel |
| Proposed Conservatee: | Leonard Peikoff |
| Objector: | Grace Davis |
The text of the Peikoff letter is suspicious. At the very beginning, not quoted above, the salutation and first paragraph (one sentence, immediately before “I am outraged”) are:Dear Objectivist Students and Friends,
I am Leonard Peikoff and I share with you today another fight against a grave social injustice.
Peikoff accuses his daughter of “Greed, Jealousy, and Revenge.” Instead of “greed” wouldn’t an Objectivist have said “greed for the unearned?”
Restoring the text behind our ellipsis in the first quoted sentence: “I am outraged, let alone astounded and even heartbroken, at a new assault against me ...” Peikoff is a professional writer yet the word “even” is extraneous and undercuts his point.
Regarding the proposed conservator the letter says, “The normal procedure is to have the wife appointed by the court ...” He must know that Kira thinks his wife is the problem, that is, if he is able to communicate with Kira.
He exaggerates the consequences of a conservatorhip. It does not mean that he becomes a slave or that the conservator gets his money. The relation is like that of a child to a guardian. The conservator is required by law to act in the interest of the conservatee. If Peikoff is in fact squandering half his wealth due to the ravages of age, it is natural that his daughter would want to prevent it for his sake. Furthermore, since she would eventually inherit his money, it is natural that she would want to prevent it for her sake as well. Finally, since she believes Peikoff’s nurse / caregiver now wife is manipulating him, she would think it wrong for that person to acquire half his wealth and want to prevent it for justice’s sake.
In the letter Peikoff does not consider the possibility that his daughter is sincerely trying to help him. Shouldn’t a nurse refuse an expensive gift from a client and a 30-something steadfastly refuse the marriage proposal of a nonagenarian?
Peikoff seems to oppose the very idea of conservatorship, yet without that recourse the enfeebled would be easy prey to con men.
Peikoff claims to lay his case before the public yet omits giving his nurse / caregiver a 3.7 million dollar mansion.
Mr. Valliant says that Peikoff asked for his help defending against Kira’s lawsuit. On August 29 he started a GoFundMe campaign, titled “Help Dr. Peikoff Fight for His Freedom,” with a target of $20,000. Mr. Valliant has a Facebook page “Protect Leonard Peikoff” (account “Leonardshelper”) on which he posts the latest news of this affair. Posted on Aug. 31:... I’m reaching out to share that Dr. Peikoff urgently needs our support to fight a legal battle that threatens his freedom and autonomy. Every donation, no matter how small, makes a significant impact in this crucial fight. If you can, please consider clicking the link below to donate or share it with others who might help. ...
Donations began slowing down after reaching about 26 and a quarter thousand dollars, coincident with the third increase in the target as donations approached it, the online appearance of photos and video of Peikoff and his wife, and possibly “market saturation” of his small circle of followers.
One source of money would be a loan based on the equity Peikoff’s wife has in the multi-million dollar house he gave her. Why the GoFundMe campaign, accompanied by desperate pleas and photographs of Peikoff, when the money could be obtained privately?
At first the photos of Peikoff displayed on “Protect Leonard Peikoff” predated this affair. One was from 2020, another from before that. Eventually Mr. Valliant put up a recent photo of Peikoff and his new wife. She appears to be a 30-something black / Filipino. The photograph has been removed but is preserved here://content.invisioncic.com/r76513/monthly_2024_10/FB_IMG_1726693266729.thumb.jpg.000e1ebe101b561439bc4b9167c36041.jpg
On September 20, 2024 Mr. Valliant finally provides a video of Peikoff, now 91, interviewed by him. According to the accompanying text it was recorded some time before, on September 7. There are at least two sections edited out. Mr. Valliant starts off talking about current events in Israel (Peikoff doesn’t disagree when he insinuates that because the U.S. did not bomb Iran in 2001, the U.S. is responsible for the October 7th Hamas attack against Israel in 2023) then Peikoff discusses the disposition of Rand’s copyrights after his death, meeting his nurse / caregiver, that she was a physical therapist and got him walking after a collapse, his marriage proposals, what they do for fun. There is no mention of conservatorship or of his daughter, and no mention of the $3.7M house given to his future wife. Peikoff is voluble but his speech somewhat slurred. At 43:57, after prompting from Mr. Valliant, his wife makes a brief appearance: content.invisioncic.com/r76513/monthly_2024_09/image.png.d001f9985136c5844b90dd195b9b3feb.pngThe video is titled “Catching up With Leonard Peikoff” and can be found on YouTube. Here is a transcribed excerpt starting at 50:30. Peikoff’s false starts are retained but crossed out. Jay is Grace’s son, Jaymeson....
we’ve just found I hope you don’t misinterpret this, uh, we enjoy going to a casino, and they have them in California. We found one down near San Diego that we’ve gone to with Jay and a couple other people at the party and played blackjack with live dealers and really enjoyed it. Last time I only lost $25, a big achievement. Uh, anyway
that restaurant and that place has a fabulous, fabulous restaurant, even though it’s just an ordinary casino, the greatest food ever, uh and uh we went the other night and they said, order four dinners
from the restaurant from the menu and we’ll serve you all four. And they said [apparently in reply to a question – AW], no, you have to order four cuz they want to make it so spectacular that anybody will come there and they’ll want to stay there and start gambling. So, uh, we enjoy that. We haven’t done it very, twice I think, [inaudible] long time but it’s something we do to have fun.
If Peikoff knows what he is doing then the iron hand of the state has no business interfering. It is not the purpose of government to prevent a man from making a fool of himself. The bar for conservatorship should be high.
On October 31 Kira announces on Facebook that she is dropping the case:In March of 2024, I filed for a Conservatorship over my 91-year-old father, Dr. Leonard Peikoff. I took this action after I lost all communication with him and he deeded title to his house to his nurse and then married her. I was subsequently cut out of his life. I felt I owed it to my father, with whom I had a lifelong loving and close relationship, to protect him. The conservatorship was my only option to reach him and to try to help him after communication closed.
After much thought, I have decided to drop the conservatorship case. Although I still believe I have a strong legal case that is supported by multiple disinterested witnesses*,
a neutral Court-appointed medical expert, and the presumptions of undue influence under California probate code, my dad has shown himself to be beyond reach as a victim used by his abuser.
Even though many people in our lives can attest that we previously had a close and loving relationship for 38 years, my father has been convinced, under what I believe is the undue influence of his nurse-turned-wife, that I am an evil, greedy person who doesn’t care about him and only wants his money. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even if I were to prevail at trial, so much damage has been done already that it would amount to a Pyrrhic victory.
My father’s love for me has been destroyed, and I no longer believe that any amount of evidence brought to his attention will open his eyes. Also, a conservator’s actions to protect him from financial fraud would take at least another year or two of contentious litigation to reverse the harm that has likely already occurred. If he is not able to understand what should be obvious, that I am trying to protect him, I do not wish to put him through a prolonged legal battle at this stage of his life.
My intention was never to control his decisions or limit his independence, but rather to shield him from what I truly believe is undue influence and exploitation. However, the emotional and mental suffering this process has caused both of us is so severe that I cannot justify continuing.
I offered to mediate – with zero financial concessions to dispel personal attacks against me – in order to restore any hope of contact between us, but was denied. Under her influence, my dad has called me Hitler in court and said that he wishes I was dead, but I still love him deeply and I grieve for the father he used to be. In the end, I don’t want to be the reason for any more distress during his remaining years. I remain devoted to my father and his legacy.
Of course, if my dad ever wanted to reach out to me again, I would welcome that. I miss him so much. But under her influence, he’s convinced I am his “greatest enemy,” so I know it’s not going to happen. It’s sad to live with the knowledge that he’s 91 and I’ll probably never get to see or talk to him again. And it’s sad that he is too far gone to understand my attempt to help him. It’s a scar on my heart I’ll have for the rest of my life.
Having said all of this, given the fluidity of the situation, I will maintain my love for my father and reassess means for justice.
* See first comment [on Facebook, see below] for an eyewitness statement from one of the multiple disinterested people who have come forward to share their concerns with the Court.
First comment (Oct. 31):Witness Statement: I, [NAME REDACTED], declare:
I am an adult and I have personal knowledge of the facts stated in this declaration or present facts upon information and belief. If called as a witness, I could and would testify to the truthfulness of these facts.I have been a caregiver, aucpressurist, and housekeeper for more than 30 years. I am a certified massage and acupressure therapist.
On December 10, 2023, I began working for Leonard Peikoff (“Mr. Peikoff”) as his caregiver and housekeeper. Given Leonard’s frail state, he needed help to get out of bed, especially since he was not very lucid most of the time.
After getting Mr. Peikoff out of bed, I made him breakfast, which he seemed to enjoy. His nurse, Grace Davis (“Grace”), was also present that morning. Grace was irritated that Mr. Peikoff liked the breakfast I made him, and from that day forward, I was no longer allowed to cook Mr. Peikoff[’s] breakfast.
Later on that day, Mr. Peikoff tried to access his email account but grew increasingly frustrated as he complained his email password had changed. He specifically told me to wake Grace’s son, Jay Davis (“Jay”), up so that he could give the correct password. Mr. Peikoff told me that Jay would always change his passwords. It was clear to me when I told Jay about Mr. Peikoff’s request, Jay was in no hurry to give him the correct password.
On my December 15, 2023, shift, while cleaning the living room, I overheard Jay telling Mr. Peikoff how poorly his daughter, Kira Beilis Peikoff (“Kira”) treated Mr. Peikoff by not coming to visit him. Jay even suggested that Mr. Peikoff leave Kira out of his will. This is something I continuously heard Grace and Jay tell Mr. Peikoff – that Kira should be taken out of his will because she no longer cared for him. I also overheard Grace tell Mr. Peikoff that it would be better if the partnerships he owned were assigned to her, so that she can take care of the details, like the finances and division-making.
That same day, Mr. Peikoff’s publishing agents showed up to discuss a book deal. I recall hearing Grace telling Mr. Peikoff that it may be best for him to make her a partner in the book deal, so she can ease his responsibilities.
During another shift, Mr. Peikoff’s cellphone began to ring, so I handed it to him and told him that it seemed like someone important was calling him. Typically, Mr. Peikoff’s cellphone was always out of reach from him and on vibration mode, to the point where he could not hear or see family and friends trying to reach him. It seemed to me that Mr. Peikoff was cut off from communication to the outside world.
When I handed his cellphone to him, Mr. Peikoff answered the call and began talking to his attorney friend. From what I could hear, the conversation was very heated as the friend was telling Mr. Peikoff that no one can reach him, neither through phone or email.
Mr. Peikoff responded that that it was none of the friend’s business.
Although I did not work with Mr. Peikoff for very long, I decided to send him a Christmas gift that year. This is because I had a good relationship with Mr. Peikoff. He liked my work, and I think he could tell that I cared about his wellbeing. He always seemed happy when I was helping him out, with either physical therapy, preparing him good meals, or helping him get dressed.
Even though this was the case, the Christmas gift I mailed to him was returned back to me, with the status of “undeliverable.” I thought that was odd, as I knew I had the correct address.
To me, it seemed like someone did not want my Christmas gift to reach Mr. Peikoff.
I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of California that the foregoing is correct and that this Declaration is executed on __[redacted]____________, in _______[redacted]______, California.
Sub-comment to the above, by Matt Beilis (Oct. 31, ellipsis in original):
Also worth mentioning re the December 15th observation above by this witness ... Kira had a jovial phone conversation with Leonard on December 8th mutually planning and then literally booking a hotel visit with Leonard for a couple nights. Kira also reached out to Leonard’s overnight caretaker at the time (another of the disinterested witnesses who came forward unprompted) to ensure she could go as well to help with Leonard’s care.
Unbeknownst to us, Grace’s son Jay sent a text to that overnight caretaker literally DURING Kira’s call with Leonard (we have the screenshots showing this) to block the visit, texting: “if Leonard asks you to go to Newport Beach to stay with him in Newport Beach from January 5th - January 7th say you cannot. I’ll speak to you about it. His daughter is insane.”
According to the above witness statement, this witness observed Jay allegedly smearing Kira’s character on December 15th to Leonard for her decision to not take that trip when Jay himself prevented it.
Leonard told us he was in a private room during that call and that no one could listen in to Kira’s call with him.
Second comment, by Shelley Jones (Oct. 31, ellipses in original):I was Leonard Peikoff’s assistant for 8 years, and I say with all honesty and sadness that I have personally witnessed much of what both Kira and the “witness” in the first comment have described, among many other things. I have not been vocal about this publicly or anywhere other than privately to a few friends due to expecting to be a “star witness” in what would have been the trial in March. However, I can now speak freely.
I always loved and did my best to protect Leonard in any way I could, and many of his friends (many now former friends due to the situation with Grace) can attest to that. It got to a point where I was clearly seeing the manipulation and “undue influence” happening and could no longer protect Leonard as I had previously, nor sit around and watch this all happening. I chose to get involved with this case in defense of Kira because I DID see the damage being caused by Grace and Jay firsthand. Kira did not mention how Leonard no longer has ANY privacy, and there are listening devices everywhere in the home as well as staff spying on him and reporting back to Grace and Jay.
Again, I love Leonard still and considered him to be a friend as well as our working relationship for 8 years. It broke my heart to go against him in support of Kira, but it was the moral thing to do. Also, I was concerned about Leonard being left penniless and on the streets once his money was gone, as well as many other things.
I hate that this whole situation happened, I miss Leonard (one of the funniest and most humble, wonderful men I ever knew ... when he was still thinking for himself), and this all breaks my heart in ways you cannot imagine.
Last but not least, to set the record straight, Kira and I were never “friends”, and I rarely even spoke with her unless there was something going on in Leonard’s life to discuss. So, I side with her because I saw this all unfold and I know her version of the story to be true. So, as difficult as it was for me (and still is), I chose the side of “moral” over saying nothing because I could not have lived with myself if something happened to Leonard and my speaking up may have mattered. I do feel Kira made the right decision with the lawsuit, but I also understand why she felt it was necessary. My heart goes out to her and her family for the loss of her father ... at least the father he used to be.
Another comment by Shelley Jones, in reply to someone who says that Kira wanted to take away Peikoff’s freedom, that he doesn’t believe her account, and that the court case was immoral (Oct. 31, typo silently corrected):This conservatorship was not initiated intending to take away Leonard’s “freedom”, but to protect his finances from the frivolous overspending going on which Kira (and I and others) were worried would leave him penniless ... Kira had every right to be concerned and request someone oversee Leonard’s finances from the outside ... His investment advisor and tax person agreed and expressed concerns as well and supported Kira, just FYI. There have been a whole lot of falsehoods thrown out there [in your comment], but some of us were firsthand witnesses to what has been going on. ...
From another comment by Shelley Jones (Nov. 1, one paragraph split into two):... there is a law in CA making it a crime for a “caregiver” to marry their “client” within I believe 90 days of being paid as a caregiver. She [Grace] was being paid up until around a month (if that) before the wedding, clearly violating this law, but even with proof the State doesn't seem to care. She wheeled him in his wheelchair into a courthouse with his oxygen tank shortly after being released from the hospital and right after buying the new home to get married. ...
Kira's story is very credible, and I can back it up because I had a front row seat to all the drama and chaos. For the record to everyone, Kira tried MULTIPLE times to reconcile with her father without any financial involvement, and one day he would be open to it, then the next day he would refer to her (as he did with me on the phone more than once) as “Hitler”. ...
The vilification of Kira by so many is sickening, and now with not having to worry about saying anything that would have been thrown at me and twisted in court, I can no longer stay silent.
In reply to someone, Kira Peikoff writes (Nov. 2):A person does not need to be demented in order to legitimately need the protection of a conservatorship. Being “unable to resist fraud or undue influence” is also, in California, grounds for granting conservatorship, which is what this case was always about.
In reply to someone else whose comment seems to be no longer online, Kira writes (Nov. 2):I’m guessing this lawyer doesn’t specialize in elder abuse? If so, he would know that is simply not the case. A conservatorship can be granted if a person is found to be “unable to resist fraud and undue influence.”
From a neurologist who specializes in assessing capacity cases in the elderly:
“Notably, according to standards set forth under Probate Code Sections 810-812, a specific medical diagnosis, or lack thereof, is not the primary determinant of a person's legal mental decision-making capacity.
“Welfare and Institutions Code §15610.70 (a) defines undue influence as “excessive persuasion that causes another person to act or refrain from acting by overcoming that person's free will and results in inequity.”
In assessing and determining whether a result was produced by undue influence, one must consider the vulnerability of the victim (example factors: advanced age, physical dependence, isolation, cognitive status), the influencer’s apparent authority (ex: caregiver/patient relationship), the actions or tactics used by the influencer, and the equity of the result.
For credible information on this topic, see the American Bar Association:
[“Undue Influence Revisited”]
americanbar.org/groups/senior_lawyers/resources/voice-of-experience/2010-2022/undue-influence-revisited“People with full capacity can be subject to undue influence as with domestic violence, cults, hostage situations, prisoners of war, and even totalitarian regimes. It is, however, easier to unduly influence someone who has mental capacity impairments … Elders of all incomes and walks of life are subject to undue influence that can rob them of their self-worth, net worth and even their lives.”
Later Kira comments on something by the same person (again apparently no longer online, Nov. 2):...
You don’t know my father or his mental capacity, nor do viewers of a YouTube video. In fact he has been assessed by a neurologist ordered by the court. Mental capacity is a relevant, but not determinative factor, in undue influence. And mental capacity is not a binary yes or no, it’s a sliding scale. My father is not demented – anyone can see that. But he is not A+ cognitively either.
He has been medically deemed susceptible to undue influence. I am not a dishonest person. I am a person of strong moral integrity who acted bravely in the face of an excruciating ordeal to protect one of my highest values.
I would want my sons to do the same for me.
...
A comment by Kira (Nov. 2):A former caretaker who worked in my dad’s house as his overnight nurse after his marriage is now speaking publicly for the first time. She shared this on her own page [a couple of misspellings here silently corrected – AW]:
“[I] Worked for her father and witnessed first hand this situation.
“I was saddened to watch a disabled man being told lies about his daughter and purposely keeping all contact away from him. Things like her sending him flowers and not giving them to her Dad, turning his cell phone off or putting it on vibrate so he could not hear who is calling him, sabotage visits that his daughter would plan to see him, abuse of medications, writing letters on his email on behalf of him not being aware. His wife would sit at his bedside and feed him lies about his daughter that was heard on the baby camera and the text messages I received about his daughter that were not true.”
...
“When I was a lone at night with Leonard he spoke so highly of his daughter and expressed how proud he was of her. The three of his favorite topics were is daughter, his dog that he loved dearly that past away and his mentor and good friend Ayn Rand.
“Kira Peikoff is by no means Hitler. She is a loving daughter that had to watch her sick father that was almost dying taken out of the hospital that could barely walk and had to be on a 24 hour oxygen tank to the justice of the peace to immediately marry his caregiver Grace.
“When I started caring for Leonard Peikoff he was severely sick, barely walk, oxygen saturation unstable and BP. He had to write his wedding vows for his wedding party which he was told he had to have in order to make his marriage legal. I had to write those vows for him because he was unable to write or recall many events why he was getting married.”
The following comment, by Roselyn Jacobson, refers to the caretaker above (Nov. 2, punctuation corrected):That same caregiver, Tanya Davis, worked for my husband and have mentioned exactly this! a year ago. I told her to do something. It’s heartbreaking to hear someone being taken advantage off. She mentioned also that your Dad is on some heavy meds. He is not himself most of the time.
Kira replies (Nov. 2):
Yes, her observations as well as those of numerous others close to my dad convinced me to go to court in March. It was an absolute last resort but one of his financial advisors told me I would be “negligent” if I did not take legal action. ...
For those who have read my dad’s letter, he claimed I went to court because he split his will. That is a flagrant lie meant to characterize me as a money grubber. Now that I’ve dropped the case I feel I can be more open in speaking up. At least people can now know the truth.
Kira and Shelley Jones also commented on the Facebook page of William Swig, who along with Scott Schiff hosts the Ayn Rand Fan Club podcast (YouTube).
Shelley Jones replies to Scott Schiff (Nov. 2):I’m willing to share what I know firsthand ... Leonard was in regular contact with Kira as he had always been from all those years prior to 2020 until he got married, at which time (for the first time ever) she was given a strict schedule of when she was allowed to call him. She visited as often as she could, and her son Leo is named after him. On a phone call I had with Leonard (with Grace interjecting herself into the conversation), she said, “I am his WIFE, and Kira needs boundaries.” This was when I was trying to “mediate”.
Rumors started after Leonard’s 90th birthday party in October of 2023 (which Kira and I both attended, and it was the first time I had met her in person) about things Kira had allegedly said (which I did not witness, but she was by her dad’s side pretty much the entire time), and it was on and off drama and accusations about that for a while. I do not know what Kira might or might not have said, but I do know that Grace’s son, Jay, was loudly saying to me on several occasions that day what Kira was accused of having said. He badmouthed Kira to me and others every chance he got.
Kira would try to call, but Leonard’s phone was often set to silent (not by him) and she grew more and more concerned when she was unable to get in touch with him after sometimes several days.
As for the Estate, he flip-flopped (in phone calls with me) about what to do, and eventually said he was going to cut her out completely, leaving everything to Grace. I don’t believe he told Kira that at the time (nor did I), so that’s not what she was reacting to as far as I know. She was devastated to have had her relationship with her father destroyed. He would have conversations with her about a reconciliation of their relationship, then the next day he’d change his mind suddenly and would refer to her as “Hitler” (to me). Eventually, he stopped speaking to her entirely. She sent him flowers, sent emails, etc. She tried and tried, but it was no use. Then anyone who even continued to speak to Kira was “the enemy”; then came the conservatorship filing out of concern after Kira found out from a reliable source that Leonard intended to transfer all of his assets to Grace. That was the chain of events to the best of my recollection.
...
Shelley Jones replies to William Swig asking about the date of the marriage. Rancho Santa Fe is the multi-million dollar mansion Peikoff gave to Grace (Nov. 2, punctuation and spelling silently corrected, ellipsis hers):The courthouse marriage was in August 2023 I believe, with their “ceremony” held shortly afterward. He got out of the hospital ICU due to pneumonia and sepsis in July, the month prior. The move from Leonard’s home in Laguna Woods to Rancho Santa Fe happened while Leonard was still in the hospital, which I’m pretty sure was in July 2023. Kira Peikoff, can you please give the specific dates, as I’m sure you have what I don’t have ... emails, etc., from that time.
Then (Nov. 2):Scott, I just spoke with Kira and she wants to have the timeline of events set straight because “my dad’s version is a flagrant lie”. She has given me permission to share these texts, and she does have emails and voicemails to back this all up. Unlike me, she still has all of the communication from then. I deleted everything once I resigned with Leonard because I didn’t foresee the court case or needing any of it anymore. I just wanted to move on and try to put it behind me. Which is why I’m limited to relying on my memory from a year ago. ...
This was Kira’s text to me just now:
My dad told me he wanted to split his will in Oct 2023 (you typed the letter) which was right before his birthday. But that he was still leaving me the copyrights. I accepted that and we agreed to never discuss the issue again. In fact, we exchanged emails about this. It was only after I brought up the concerns of one of his current caretakers [at that time] and another friend to simply let him know that people in his life thought he was being taken advantage of (Dec 2023) that he severed all contact, told me I am disowned, and that I don’t have a father because I “hurt Grace’s feelings”. I tried desperately to reconcile with him, sent him flowers, asked to speak to Grace, and she would not allow that. The last time he contacted me was Jan 1, 2024, to dismiss me from his life. I never heard from him again. I went to court in March because I had no other options to get through to him and there were so many red flags.
On 10/13/2023: Let me add, Kira, that I do not want to discuss this or any will or money issue again – certainly not on the telephone, or on Zoom, or anywhere else. Of course, if some emergency requires such a discussion, I don’t forbid that obviously. But I want it only in an emergency, of the right kind. So, Kira, I hope that we can go back to the beginning, where you are in the cradle holding my fingers and my heart is bursting – and nothing will interrupt that again. I look forward to your fingers grasping mine again on Saturday.
After that, we never discussed money or the will again.
As you know, I never went to court because he split the will. I was willing to accept that and move on so we could have a relationship. It’s awful how my dad has mischaracterized the events and ascribed purely financial motives to me.
In November, 2023, he left me a voicemail to say he wanted to come visit me, which Grace and Jay made him cancel.
Kira (Nov. 2):I will add that I don’t believe my dad mischaracterized the events leading up to the conservatorship on purpose, in order to slander me. My dad was never a liar, never devious or wicked in any way. (Although I don’t know who he is now under her influence.) I believe his letter reflects how he has been manipulated to believe a lie that paints me in the most ugly light. And because he has some documented memory loss, I’m guessing he doesn’t remember how the events actually unfolded – only what he is told happened. He has had difficulty (recently documented in a court-ordered neurology exam) orienting events in time. For just one example, he told a neurologist recently that he stopped driving “3 or 4 years ago,” when in fact it was about 9 years ago.
Ed Powell weighs in (Nov. 2, one paragraph split into two):This case illustrates, alas, a standard scam, particularly prevalent among Filipinas. I’ve heard the same story from multiple people.
I was explaining the case (to the best of my limited knowledge) to a friend the other night. He immediately took Leonard’s side, while his wife, whose own grandfather was subject to the exact same scam, tried to educate him. In the end he saw his wife’s point. ...
It’s not even a case of rationality or mental capacity. A “nerd” is the perfect mark for this type of scam. ... Indeed, counterintuitively, the more honest and undevious a person is, the easier it is to fool them.
Kira replies (Nov. 2):I was told by two separate lawyers that this is a common scam by Filipina nurses. I was told they have a “playbook.”
Kira comments on the post of Shelley Jones above (Nov. 2):Yep the move to Rancho Santa Fe was July 2023 straight from the hospital, where he had been in the ICU for sepsis and pneumonia. I flew and visited him there on a moment’s notice.
The marriage was done in secret on Aug 31, 2023. He didn’t know he was getting married. He thought they were picking up a marriage license only. But they got married, and he explained to me the following day when he called to tell me the news that “this is how it works in the state of CA.”
Scott Schiff asks Kira about Peikoff’s claim (in the first Valliant interview) that he had asked Grace to marry him once a year for three years before she said yes. Did Kira suspect a romance? She replies (Nov. 2):I did not know there was any romantic notion until July 2023 when, 9 days after his hospital discharge, he told me he had decided to get married. I was utterly shocked because I had asked him directly in May 2023 if he was romantic with Grace (who was his paid nurse then), and he denied it, though he admitted to liking her. I said, “Once you move to Rancho Santa Fe, I bet you will marry her.” He responded that he would never get married again:
“Why would I do that at my age?” And he said he didn’t want to put me in a precarious position with the copyrights, which was our lifelong understanding that I would inherit. He told me several times last year that he was leaving the most important books to me as a “favor to Ayn” and that I was the only person he trusted with them.
I said, “The problem is in three or six months, you won’t remember this conversation.”
He said, “How can I reassure you?”
And I said, “You can’t.”
And here we are.
Someone asks about a reconciliation, Kira replies (Nov. 2):I tried and tried for a reconciliation every way you can imagine. It is impossible.
I don’t know anything about his [Peikoff’s] physical state, as I have not seen him in a year. I am not in contact with anyone who still talks to him and could report back to me. So many people have now been cut off: my entire family, his own brother, his longtime financial professionals, his secretary, other caretakers, multiple longtime friends. All because of this situation.
I can’t comment on the future.
Someone asks Kira what she makes of Peikoff’s current close association with James Valliant. Does Valliant believe Grace is sincere in her relation with Peikoff? Has she duped Valliant as well? Kira replies with a rhetorical question. The “five minutes” is hyperbole for a few days after many years. As an acquaintance summarized, “Valliant came out of nowhere to help facilitate what Grace and Jay are doing.” (Nov. 3):Or is James so intellectually dishonest that he has shown up in my dad’s life five minutes ago after being completely irrelevant, non existent for years, and claims he knows everything that happened, more than all the many eyewitnesses who have come forward and made sworn statements under penalty of perjury? Is he such a sycophant desperate for glory that he will exploit the void in my dad’s life for friends, when the good and honest ones have all been cut off, so that he can promote his own status in Objectivism? Or even, I wonder, vie for a position on the new “committee” that apparently will run Ayn’s estate? You decide.
Back on Kira’s Facebook page, she replies to someone about the termination of an overnight nurse (Nov. 3):... I can speak more freely now. I was the one who told him [Peikoff] about the overnight nurse’s concerns. ... She had reached out to me cold, a stranger, to tell me, risking her job.
I told him on December 18th, 2023. I truly, truly did not expect what happened next. To this day, I still feel shocked and horrified by it.
He reacted with utter fury, telling me she was a liar, and that I was trying to discredit Grace and blow up his marriage.
He screamed at me that I was disowned and no longer had a father.
He said, and this is a direct quote, which my husband can testify to, “If Grace was working with the mafia to poison me, I wouldn’t want to know.”
I have been cut out of his life ever since.
In another comment Kira writes about the eyewitness accounts (Nov. 4):... in terms of the individuals who have spoken up and voiced concerns – not only did they have nothing to gain, they had everything to lose. And they did. Six people lost their jobs over speaking out.
A postscript comment: “And worst of all I lost my dad.” When someone points out that she had already lost him, she replies (Nov. 4):[T]hank you. Yes, I had already lost him several months before I went to court. He cut me out of his life. When I tried to reconcile with him, at first he was open to it, but Grace explicitly forbade it. (Her rejection of my reconciliation attempt is documented in emails – Jan 2024.) That was the last I ever heard from him.
Someone writes that he would like to know “the context of Valliant’s involvement here” and Shelley Jones replies (Nov. 4):Re Valliant, I can offer that prior to this whole nasty situation, as I did all of Leonard’s scheduling for visits and phone calls for 8 years until early this year, James Valliant was not a “friend” of Leonard’s. If he was, I would have known about visits and communication. I was also told that some time ago, Leonard said unflattering things about Valliant, which I cannot confirm because I don’t believe Leonard ever mentioned anything to me. However, does anyone wonder why Valliant suddenly appeared out of nowhere to be Leonard’s “champion”? I can only speculate about that.
Someone asks, among other quesions (Nov. 7):... why a grown son ... lives with them and is always present?
Valliant doesn’t mention Kira’s announcement on his “Protect Leonard Peikoff” Facebook page. Eventually a commenter does. At some point Valliant pins to the beginning: “Protect Leonard Peikoff limited who can comment on this post.” (The limit applies to any post. When I commented on his calling Kira’s witnesses liars by politely pointing out reasons to give them credence, he deleted my comment and blocked me from viewing “Protect Leonard Peikoff.” However I have another account available. When someone else asked if Grace’s son lived at the mansion, he too was immediately banned.)
Valliant keeps his GoFundMe campaign going. On November 7, a week after Kira’s announcement, he adds this to the GoFundMe page – the amount raised having reached $26,994 (brackets his):[Update: The case was dismissed, unilaterally! Your support helped to make that happen! Thank you, one and all! However, the petitioner is still publicly threatening future legal action. The fight isn’t over yet!]
Yet at this point Kira is explicitly not threatening legal action.
Carl Barney, former Church of Scientology executive, former head of a disgraced trade school conglomerate, former ARI board member, and co-founder of Objective Standard Institute, writes on his blog (Nov. 14) that when he visited Peikoff in 2020 he found him in very poor health. Barney considered conducting a “medical intervention” and asking Peikoff’s friends for help. However Peikoff’s “long-time assistant, Shelley” told him that “Leonard would not approve of such an intervention.” He then acted on his own. Working with Peikoff’s assistant and a friend (unnamed) he found an “up-scale” healthcare center in Peikoff’s area and eventually hired Grace Davis, a registered nurse. He paid the agency for her services.
After that, as related by Barney, he communicated with Peikoff’s assistant “almost daily” and checked in with Peikoff “mostly daily.”Grace helped him. He started to become stronger. Notwithstanding that, he was still so frail – in and out of the hospital – that Grace and her son, Jaymeson (an EMT), continued tending to him.
I started to hear from his assistant (also my Executive Assistant), Shelley, that there was something odd with Grace. She was taking over everything – not only his health, but also his office and his finances.
Due to illnesses and medical drugs, Leonard became increasingly susceptible to undue influence. After his move to Rancho Santa Fe (near San Diego), I then heard from Shelley (and others) that there were conflicts with Leonard’s friends. Some were cut off. Shelley was finding it difficult to contact Leonard. After years of regularly scheduled meetings, Leonard was now canceling (or forgetting about) them. Then, Shelley’s access to his computer was entirely cut off.
A few months ago, Leonard called me. He spoke to me for about an hour. He went into a long diatribe about his former assistant and Kira – how wicked they were. He complained bitterly about Kira. Finally, I said to him, “But, Leonard, you’ve always loved Kira. ... Something must have happened. What happened before this conflict arose?” There was a long pause, and then the line went silent – I think someone had pressed the mute button. After 30 - 60 seconds, Leonard came back on and, in a strange, non sequitur way, said, “Well, Kira was always possessive, even as a child,” and then he went on to talk about her childhood.
Someone comments on Barney’s blog: “Gossip is disgusting ... .” Talking about this affair is not necessarily gossip. Eye-witness testimony is not gossip. When Peikoff published the open letter about the affair it became a subject for public discussion and it will be criticized.
If Grace has such sway over Peikoff that he emptied his savings so he could buy her a mansion (judging from Valliant’s GoFundMe campaign Peikoff could only just barely afford it) he might end up giving her the Rand copyrights as well. (Elsewhere Valliant insinuates that the upkeep of the mansion is costing all of the royalties from Peikoff’s and Rand’s books.)
Back on Kira’s Facebook page, she posts (Nov. 19):I’m fed up. I’ve had enough of being villainized for trying to be a good daughter during an unspeakably horrible ordeal, where I have suffered the loss of my dad while he is still alive – due to no fault of my own. I hope people have the sense, and the knowledge now, to know better, and to see through these attacks on my character.
[Valliant, Aug. 17]:
...
In fact, Kira has received nearly all of her father’s money in recent years.
[Kira Bellis, Nov. 19]:
... Your campaign to villainize me is disgusting and immoral. Your statements are filled with lies. My father gave Grace 7 figures since Jan 2023 as revealed in the deposition of his former financial advisor. Just stop telling people lies. Don’t you have anything better to do than to rub salt in the wound of a tragically painful family ordeal?
Matt Beilis replies (Nov. 19):So wild that someone who had no presence in your dad’s life during these events is publicly & privately slandering you and every other person who came forward with their first hand observations. Some hell of a coincidence that all the nurses / caregivers, financial professionals, close friends, and employees who spoke out all have corroborating accounts. Or does he think it’s a conspiracy by a bunch of people who had nothing to gain (and most of whom lost their jobs) by coming forward? What would be all of their motives? Also I’m curious – is James one of the people newly appointed to administer the copyrights? ...
Also, James just (no surprise) deleted your comment from that page. I wonder how many other skeptical responses he’s deleted? ...
Near the end of Rand’s life she made Leonard Peikoff the sole heir to her estate. She told him that she trusted him to use it well. What would she think of an “Ayn Rand” institute that promotes leftists for president: first Hillary, then Biden, then Kamala? What would she think seeing who will end up with a substantial part of the wealth she worked so hard to create?
If you donate to a GoFundMe and later have second thoughts, GoFundMe Group, Inc. says it will refund your donation. On the relevant GoFundMe page:1. Scroll to the bottom.
2. Click “Help Center”.
3. Click “Donations”.
4. Click “Request a refund”.
5. Scroll to the bottom of the page.
6. Click “Contact us”.
7. If necessary, scroll to bottom of pop-up window.
8. Click “Refund donation + tip”.
9. Click “Refund request form”.
10. Fill out the form:
a. Your email address.
b. Type of refund – “Full donation and tip”.
c. Payment method you used.
d. Credit card or whatever information.
Click “Submit”. -oOo-See John McCaskey above.
John Ridpath
Canadian. Born 1936. On ARI’s Board of Directors from 1989 to when he retired in 2011. Died 2021.
Attended Upper Canada College, then the University of Toronto, receiving a B.S. in Engineering and an MBA (Wikipedia). Swimming champion. Ph.D., Economics, 1974, from the University of Virginia. Became an associate professor of Economics and Intellectual History at York University in Toronto.
Recorded several lectures, evidently his preferred format. His only Op-Ed at ARI is the George-Washington-would-invade-Iraq-right-now article of February 11, 2003 – see “America Needs a Leader Like George Washington” on this website.
There’s a false note in that Op-Ed, besides its mendacity. The style is wrong, the article doesn’t sound like something Mr. Ridpath would write judging from his public speaking. This may be because ARI subjects its Op-Eds to “slow and extensive editorial reviews” (see the entry for Robert Tracinski below), in other words they’re worked over by a committee. Anyway, he put his name on it.
A monograph published in 1990 entitled “On the Independent Pursuit of Justice” describes how he duped a friend into barring two student Objectivists from an Objectivist conference in order to cover up a rape accusation by a former girlfriend while her mother lay dying in hospital. In 2018 George Marklin, a retired research physicist at the University of Washington, made public a second allegation by another woman.
Gregory Salmieri
Anthem Foundation Fellow, co-secretary of the Ayn Rand Society, co-editor of A Companion to Ayn Rand, a frequent speaker at ARI summer conferences. Through December 2020 was a part time lecturer at Rutgers University. In January 2021 he became director of the just established Program for Objectivity in Thought, Action, and Enterprise at the University of Texas, part of the Salem Center directed by Carlos Carvalho, an immigrant from Brazil and professor at UT. Financial backing for the Program comes from Bud Brigham, apparently thinking he is helping to spread Rand’s ideas, and the Anthem Foundation.
Peter Schwartz
Born 1949. Former Chairman of ARI’s Board of Directors.
Founded The Intellectual Activist journal in 1979 and sold it to Robert Stubblefield in 1991 (who in turn sold it to Robert Tracinski, the editor since 1996, in late 2001). According to one contributor, while Mr. Schwartz was owner Mr. Peikoff read and cleared everything before it was printed.
After Ayn Rand’s death Mr. Peikoff took the anthology of her essays she had entitled The New Left: the Anti-Industrial Revolution, added essays by Mr. Schwartz, and changed the title to Return of the Primitive: the Anti-Industrial Revolution.
Author of The Foreign Policy of Self-Interest. I haven’t read it. If it’s true to form it claims that sacrificing Americans to Israel is really in their self interest. I mean Americans’ self interest.
Famous for the essay “Libertarianism: The Perversion of Liberty” first published in 1985. His argument misses its mark. If you want to show that a movement is no good, you show that its best representatives are no good. That way your reader can conclude: if the best are so bad the whole lot must be rotten. Instead, Mr. Schwartz considers a few crazy people calling themselves libertarians, then concludes that anyone calling himself a libertarian is crazy.
Certainly the root of the word, liberty, is unobjectionable. Ayn Rand was a libertarian when it comes to that. (See Ayn Rand’s Political Label on this website.)
In the blogpost “Libertarianism vs. Liberty” on HuffPost, a leftwing news outlet, he chastises libertarians’ for their non-interventionist foreign policy and for opposing jury nullification.
He begins his essay “Snowden and the NSA” with “What the National Security Agency (NSA) has done in spying on Americans is reprehensible – and what Edward Snowden has done is worse.” and goes on to call Snowden a criminal. In “A Follow-up on Snowden” he says, regarding Snowden’s revelations, “... if I had to choose whether to believe a Pentagon assertion that the revelations harm our defense capabilities or a Snowden assertion that they don’t ... I would certainly choose the former.”
See the George Reisman affair under Leonard Peikoff above.
C. Bradley Thompson
A former senior writer for ARI and still in good standing with the institution. Originally from Canada.
Professor of Political Science at Clemson University, South Carolina. Executive director of the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism, sponsored by Branch Banking & Trust (BB&T). B.A. 1982 Western State College, M.A. 1984 Boston College, Ph.D. 1993 Brown University.
Formerly on the board of Carl Barney’s Center for Excellence in Higher Education. Was on the board of Barney’s Prometheus Foundation but when checked in October 2020 had left. (Contrary to Barney’s website, checked at the same time, Barney is no longer on the board of the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism.)
Writes for The Objective Standard. Managed to write a 14,000 word article about neoconservatives (“The Decline and Fall of American Conservatism” TOS Fall 2006) without once mentioning Israel – some feat.
Author – “with Yaron Brook” – of the book Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea. The text has an earnest sound to it and the quotes Mr. Thompson has dug up by Leo Strauss, David Brooks, and Irving Kristol show the neocons for the fascists they are, but this is just the bread of the sandwich. The meat is Chapter Eight, by Yaron Brook though not bylined, which chapter is poisoned with the very neoconservatism Mr. Thompson pretends to oppose. Altogether a truly Machiavellian performance.
We suspect Mr. Thompson knows which side his bread is buttered on.
Robert Tracinski
Owns and runs Tracinski Publishing Company, based north of Charlottesville, Virginia. It once published The Intellectual Activist “An Objectivist Review,” a hard copy magazine originally founded by Peter Schwartz in 1979 and sold to Mr. Tracinski in 1991, and the TIA Daily email newsletter. In 2012 these ceased publication and Mr. Tracinski replaced them both with the email newsletter “The Tracinski Letter.” For a while he ran an email guide to RealClearPolitics, a mainstream news aggregator website, called “The Daily Debate” then became a senior writer at “The Federalist.” One article from the latter dated August 20, 2015 was “Nothing Is More ‘Conservative’ Than Birthright Citizenship.” He now publishes an email list called Symposium featuring other authors in the Conservative, Inc. line. One dated April 20, 2021 was “Why We Need Cosmopolitan Globalists.”
Mr. Tracinski used to be ARI’s editorial director, a Senior Fellow, and a lecturer in its Academic Center. After starting TIA Daily the amount of his direct ARI work fell off and ARI came to describing him as a senior writer or guest writer. Stopped writing for ARI early in 2004, stopped teaching there sometime in 2005. His articles remained notated “Robert W. Tracinski is a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute” until after the congressional election of 2006 when ARI distanced itself from him.
Apparently the reason for the distancing was that beginning November 14, 2006 he began publishing some articles that questioned aspects of Mr. Peikoff’s theory about how ideas influence history. By the end of the month a notice had appeared on Mr. Tracinski’s archived articles on ARI’s website: “Robert W. Tracinski is no longer associated with the Ayn Rand Institute—neither as a writer nor as a speaker.” Later “Robert W. Tracinski was a writer for the Ayn Rand Institute between 2000 [sic] and 2004; he is no longer affiliated with the Ayn Rand Institute.” (Other former ARI writers are not treated so harshly in their archived articles.) Later ARI changed the notice yet again, to simply: “Robert W. Tracinski was a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute between 1997 and 2004.” Finally, ARI removed all of Tracinski’s articles from its website. In many cases the press release announcing an article remained, until the revamping of the website in March 2014 when they too disappeared.
Jack Wakeland, a friend of Mr. Tracinski and writer for TIA, wrote on December 21, 2006 (Forum for Ayn Rand Fans):“Rob Tracinski stopped writing OpEds for ARI about 3-1/2 years ago, he quit his employment there 3 years ago, and completed the last of his writing courses that were contracted through ARI 1-1/2 years ago.
“Back in 2003 Rob told me that he quit writing for ARI because he was tired of dealing with their slow and extensive editorial reviews. He did not want to spend his time and effort waiting on others for approval to use their press, not when he had one of his own.”
Mr. Tracinski wrote (TIA Daily, January 17, 2007):“More than three years ago, I decided to phase out my work for the Ayn Rand Institute in order to focus all of my efforts on TIA. I quit as senior editor of the Institute’s op-ed program in 2003, and my last writing course for the Objectivist Academic Center ended in 2005. I have not worked for the Institute since then, and the old description of me as a “senior writer” for ARI has been out of date for years. So their recent re-write of the byline on my old op-eds does not mean that I was suddenly fired by ARI. Why they chose to change that description now, and why they chose to do it in those particular words, I don’t know.”
Not even an inkling?
He has an undergraduate degree in Philosophy from the University of Chicago. Once worked as a securities analyst for Chicago-based Morningstar Inc.
Studied at the Objectivist Graduate Center. Former chairman of the Center for the Moral Defense of Capitalism.
His ARI Op-Eds were distributed by Creators Syndicate and published regularly by Jewish World Review. Some of his TIA articles are published there as well.
The place Mr. Tracinski’s The Intellectual Activist once occupied vis-à-vis ARI was taken over by The Objective Standard, a quarterly journal published by Craig Biddle, which in turn ARI abandoned after the McCaskey fiasco.
The neoconservative magazine The Weekly Standard went out of business the end of 2018. Former writers soon created an online outlet called The Bulwark (taking over the news aggregator). A former contributing editor to The Weekly Standard is its editor-in-chief. In The Tracinski Letter email of 24 January 2019 Mr. Tracinski wrote:“I just had my first article published at The Bulwark. This is a new website created by refugees from The Weekly Standard as a bastion for conservatives of the ‘NeverTrump’ persuasion. It seemed like a natural fit ... .”
Refugees? There was nothing to flee from but an economic failure. The founder of The Weekly Standard and many of its senior editors now work at The Bulwark.
Tal Tsfany
ARI’s president and CEO. An Israeli. Co-founded ARI’s Ayn Rand Center Israel. ARI’s press release of March 27, 2018 announcing the change from Brook describes him as “an entrepreneur, investor and a business executive in the technology field.”
ARI’s press release mentions that Tsfany came to the U.S. with Amdocs, an Israeli telecom, in 2006. For what it’s worth, Amdocs is heavily funded by the Israeli government and its board has always been dominated by current and former Israeli military and intelligence officers. It works closely with the NSA.
His total compensation from ARI for fiscal year ending September 30, 2021 was $ 508,083.
11 December 2023 put up a YouTube video titled “I earned millions of dollars and wanted to die” about his time in Silicon Valley.
Wrote a children’s book titled Sophie published in 2018. Its heroine is an illegal alien (in America, not Israel) named Sophie Anwar. It celebrates Third World migration into the U.S. using the example of a Syrian family. TOS praised the book to the skies (this when TOS was back in ARI’s good graces for a time).
Lisa VanDamme
Not a member of ARI but a frequent speaker at OCONs and her talks are featured in ARI’s bookstore. Occasionally writes for The Objective Standard and has been interviewed by The Undercurrent. She founded and heads VanDamme Academy, a K-8 private school in southern California.
She performed at Carl Barney’s Thanksgiving celebration 2019, reciting poetry.
Don Watkins
Fellow at ARI from 2006 to 2017. Co-author with Yaron Brook of Free Market Revolution, Equal is Unfair, and The Pursuit of Wealth. One suspects Watkins did all the work. Author of another book whose title plays on the word “Obamacare”: RooseveltCare: How Social Security is Sabotaging the Land of Self-Reliance. If he were to write The Hart-Celler Act: How Third World Immigration is Sabotaging Any Possibility of Repealing AnyKindaCare he’d be out the window.
Left ARI in 2017 and joined Alex Epstein’s Center for Industrial Progress.
· · ·
... Is that all? Watkins’s the last?
Yes.
... Don’t you have something better to do? I mean, what kind of a man would spend twenty hours or whatever it was digging up this stuff? Get a life!
The purpose of ARI Watch is to critically review ARI. Personal details about ARI writers that reveal their intellectual background and methods are grist for the mill. Besides, biography in general is a legitimate occupation. Biographies of the famous and infamous can even be great literature. You wouldn’t tell an author of such: Get a life! – except as a joke.
