Ayn’s sad end

SIR: Many thanks for Michael White’s witty summary of the life and works of Ayn Rand (‘Who Was Ayn Rand?’, July issue). Being an extreme libertarian, Rand denounced all forms of social welfare and altruism as immoral. She believed they made people weak and were a burden on the strong heroes who drove society forward.

True to her philosophy of selfsufficiency, she was left to struggle alone by her famous Republican acolytes when she developed cancer in the late 1970s – being forced to accept help from the very same American social security and public Medicare systems which she spent much of her life denouncing. Bob Cannell, Bradford, West Yorkshire.