the like.
Reich used to enjoy a kind of Socratic argument with McCullough, as indeed with
others. Reich once asked him if he thought that Red China should be admitted to the United
Nations, a hotly debated topic in the 1950s. McCullough said no. Reich, who was adamant-
ly opposed to the admission of Red China, took another tack for the moment: “Well, the
government represents 700 million people.”
This, then, was one Reich—a kind and helpful teacher, a thoughtful man turning
ideas around in his head, a lonely man. The New York physicians had given him a complete
set of Beethoven’s recordings for his fifty-fifth birthday in 1952, knowing that Reich listened
to music a good deal in those years. He continued painting.
The other Reich was also in evidence—quick to reach conclusions on slim evidence,
prone to wishful thinking. McCullough saw this side, too. Sometime in 1953 or 1954,
McCullough was invited to become a member of the New York Academy of Sciences.
McCullough attributed this invitation to a recruitment drive, of no particular significance.
Reich, for whom in times of stress little happened by chance either to himself or to those asso-
ciated with him, thought it might be connected with the Academy’s interest in orgonomy.
Reich needed to grab desperately at such straws for he was aware that the FDA
investigation,still continuing, posed a dangerous threat to his very existence.
380 Myron SharafFury On Earth