The emotional connection between them during this period is more obscure. In her
thirties now, Ilse was eager to have a child. Initially, Reich was not. When Ilse did become
pregnant, Reich insisted on an abortion^3. (We recall that in the mid-1930s he had insisted
that Elsa Lindenberg have an abortion.) Much as Reich loved children, he was not one to let
accident, or his mate’s wishes, dictate his destiny. With Ilse he may have felt continuing
uncertainties about the relationship itself. Also, the heavy pressure of his work may have
made him feel the time was not ripe for a child.
It is hard to overestimate Reich’s commitment to work during these years. With the
discovery of orgone energy, a long-held sense of mission was intensified. Even in
Scandinavia, there had still been time for fun—skiing, tennis, and parties. In America there
was no skiing, no tennis, no parties. Diversions were limited to such activities as a Sunday
trip—with Ilse and his daughters—to Jones Beach, or to dinner and a movie with Ilse.
The closest thing Reich had to a friendship during those years was his relationship
by mail with A. S. Neill in England^4. Neill’s independence, strong sense of personal iden-
tity, and achievements, combined with his deep respect for Reich, permitted the two men a
relationship nearer to equality than Reich was to have with anyone else. But even with Neill,
Reich’s letters are almost totally devoted to work. The frequent references to social problems
were part of Reich’s work, since he never lost the sense of himself as a socially engaged
researcher, with the deep conviction that his ideas had many answers to the turmoil then rag-
ing. Reich hardly ever wrote to Neill about his personal life—his relationship with Ilse or his
feelings toward co-workers and students other than his evaluation of them as workers.
Personal joys and complaints rarely entered the correspondence.
Yet the letters convey more of a sense of the man than some of his communica-
tions. And one feels his love for Neill, just as Neill’s letters convey his love for Reich.
Typically with Reich, his letters are especially directed to themes of concern to the recipient
as well as himself. With Neill, the shared concerns were education and social-political devel-
opments.Occasionally,he confided in Neill about something quite beyond Neill’s ken, such
as the encounter with Einstein,simply because there were so few people with whom he
could discuss such events.
Despite the relative absence of attacks on his work, memories of old ones could
still stir in Reich the kind of rage that provoked his own authoritarian tendencies. This ten-
dency was to reach a crescendo in the 19508, but it could clearly be seen in a relatively minor
incident from the early 1940s.
In 1942 Gunnar Leistikow, a Norwegian journalist, had written an article on the
Norwegian newspaper campaign for the International Journal for SexEconomy and Orgone-
Research^5. Leistikow protested certain editorial changes made in his article without his per-
mission,the most important of which was the title Wolfe chose, “The Fascist Newspaper
Campaign in Norway.”Leistikow’s original article did not contain the word “Fascist.” After
the article appeared, he wrote Wolfe that it was highly misleading to label the campaign
“Fascist”when in fact a Socialist newspaper had been in the forefront of the attack. In
response,Wolfe wrote that the sex-economic definition of fascism had nothing to do with
314 Myron SharafFury On Earth