unimportant to him whether I had coine or not. He said he didn’t need me or anyone else^17.
The Reich who “didn’t need me or anyone else” was part of the stern persona
adopted soon after arrival in America. However, it was not simply a mask. Reich was con-
vinced that he was orgonomy’s main asset and that no one was going to hinder his progress.
He was a more overwhelming leader than he had been in Europe. Although he remained a
generous and stimulating teacher to the end, his chief interest now lay in a relentless pursuit
of his own destiny. Others were secondary, to be sacrificed when they interfered with his
creativity. It was no facile warning he gave one student: “Keep away from me. I am over-
whelming. I burn through people.”^18
In America, Reich was able to attract a number of intellectuals who did not actual-
ly work with him, but who were much influenced by his teachings. The artist closest to him
was William Steig, who illustrated Listen, Little Man!Steig was one of the few persons who
came to Reich with an independent, successful career. His contributions to The New Yorker
and his books had already made him one of America’s most innovative cartoonists. He was
also a charming, witty person with a feeling for the nuances of life. A patient of Reich’s in
the mid-i94os, he was deeply grateful for the help he received, and believed the accumulator
had saved his mother’s life. He was totally committed to Reich, and in the 19508 he would
work hard on Reich’s behalf.
Paul Goodman, poet, essayist, philosopher, psychologist, and man of letters, was in
therapy with Alexander Lowen around I945^19. After Goodman wrote the first positive
review of Reich’s work to appear in America, Reich telephoned him and asked Goodman to
come and speak with him^20 .Excited at the prospect of working with Reich, Goodman was
disappointed when at the meeting Reich expressed displeasure over Goodman’s linkage of
orgonomy with anarchism.He asked Goodman to cease making this connection. In his turn,
Goodman pointed out similarities between the concept of work democracy and the ideas of
Peter Kropotkin,a noted Russian philosopher ofanarchism. Goodman was touched by
Reich’s frank, embarrassed acknowledgment that he was not familiar with Kropotkin. But he
was chagrined by Reich’s authoritarianism. His annoyance did not prevent him from contin-
uing to be a persuasive advocate of many of Reich’s psychological and social concepts, how-
ever, although he was never involved in the natural-scientific side of orgonomy.
Saul Bellow, the distinguished novelist, was in therapy with one of Reich’s students
in the 1940s and for a period was so devoted to Reich’s work that he quarreled bitterly with
Alfred Kazin,who was considerably less enthusiastic^21 .Bellow’s The Adventures of Angle
Marchand Henderson the Rain Kingwere especially influenced by Reich. Norman Mailer never
met Reich, nor was he ever in Reichian therapy, but he absorbed and utilized many of Reich’s
concepts^22.
During the same period,the talented short-story writer and critic Isaac Rosenfeld
was deeply involved in Reich’s ideas. In a vivid if often acidulous diary, parts of which were
published posthumously in The Partisan Review, Rosenfeld mockingly commented on
Irving Kristol, Nathan Glazer, and Robert Warshaw, all of whom then wrote for
Commentary; among the things Rosenfeld disliked about them were their put-downs of
24 : Personal Life and Relations with Colleagues: 1941-1950 323