FBI investigated Ayn Rand's stalker who called her 'mother' and threatened to murder her

Objectivist author and godmother to the Libertarian movement Ayn Rand had a stalker in the late 1960s considered himself the heir of her philosophy and said that he would "legendize" his love for her by murdering her.

MuckRock.com released details on Friday of the FBI file on an unnamed man who deluged Rand with letters and who also wrote to President Richard Nixon, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and the editor of Time magazine.

"Tell me that my book, my mother, is not the greatest story ever told, and that I have not inherited the pen of Ayn Rand," the man wrote to Rand. "You know what it means to me. You will live forever in me."

In another letter, he wrote, "I know you have never been challenged as I can challenge you. I know you will not yield to me, because to do so is to cheapen my inheritance. Do you see? I must kill you for the banner -- which will come to me in mind? We immortals thus earn life with intransigence. You know I would consecrate the ground under your feet, kiss your hands, kneel before you, but cannot go to you. I will legendize you with this love."

The man had a "searing hatred for the political establishment," wrote MuckRock's Nathaniel King, and directed a stream of letters at Nixon and Sen. Kennedy.

He told Kennedy that after reading one of his letters, "you will be unable to know your wife. I have trapped you in your own code. You preach sin -- I have made you sinless. You preach force -- you are soon to die by force."

"Let me know when you're ready to die, old buddy," the man wrote. "I will be happy to accommodate you."

Kennedy passed away of a brain tumor in 2009.

The letter writer was interviewed by the FBI, but insisted that he had no intention of harming anyone. However, in the presence of agents, he said there are two ways for U.S. citizens to affect change, "to form gangs and blow things up."

In late 1969, the man wrote to the FBI that he'd purchased a gun and not paid taxes on it and added that he intended to use it. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms was tasked with seizing the gun and arresting the man if he resisted.

King said, "In January 1970, U.S. Attorney Nathan Graham, whom the writer had called 'a complete, immoral, unethical, incompetent, rotten swine who has never produced one thing of value to civilization,' advised no further investigation was desired by the FBI, and the 152 page file ends abruptly after a heavily redacted finale."

The full file is available at MuckRock's request page.