Response

Dear Sir

As evidence that I exaggerate and quote out of context Dr O'Neil cites my contention that Rado's characterization of Anna Freud is derisive. The passage in question (quoted in my review) reads: ‘The nightmare was that she had no inkling what science is. She was educated to be a nursery school teacher, not even a grammar school instructor; that was the extent of her scientific equipment’ (p. 105). Readers can judge whether or not this description of one of the pre-eminent psychoanalysts of this century passes muster as derision.

Yes, I do hold Rado partly to blame for his own obliteration from the psychoanalytic firmament. Interestingly, this view is not radically different from Swerdloff's in 1986. At that time she wrote that Rado was ‘impatient and pugnacious’ when he encountered disagreement, and noted that ‘Those qualities engendered hostility which prompted opposition to his concepts’ (Swerdloff, 1986, p. 118). In my review I gave several examples drawn from the book to support my characterization of Rado as bilious and vituperative. If these examples seriously misrepresent Rado, then it falls to the editors to explain why they elected to publish them and why their subject's personal memoir is utterly devoid of a kind word for anyone.

Though Dr O'Neil portrays me as callously unmoved, I made clear in my review that, quite to the contrary, I find the story of what I have called Rado's intellectual suicide enormously sad. This had more to do with his insistence upon what in my review I dubbed his idiolect than with Rado's personality per se. Nevertheless, the spectacle of his trashing so many important figures in his career makes his obviously embittered remembrances an unfortunate final chapter to an embattled life and a rather unlikely catalyst for posthumous rediscovery. This, too, reflects the editors' decisions, not mine. I would think a more fitting tribute would be realized by reprinting Rado's