A Possible Correction on Milton Friedman’s “Isolation”

In a September 4 post titled “The Isolated Milton Friedman,” I quoted two paragraphs from Michael Hirsh, Capital Offense: How America’s Wise Men Turned America’s Future Over to Wall Street. I won’t quote the whole passage again.

Here’s a passage that struck me as strange, given what a warm and welcoming person Milton was:

For most of those years of the Cold War, he remained the leader of a maverick insurgency, isolated and condemned even on the Chicago campus as the 1960s counterculture grew. There were times when no one would eat with him in the faculty dining room.  (Italics added.)

My commentary was on something else, but, still, I should have noted that this passage struck me as strange.

A long time friend, Christopher Jehn (we’ve been friends since meeting each other at Richard Thaler’s house in 1977), sent me the following email and has given me permission to quote him:

I wound up reading your Sept. 4 post on Friedman’s “isolation.” Your post and especially the quote from Hirsh didn’t ring true. Indeed Hirsh (and his references) sounds almost delusional. Recall I was a graduate student at Chicago from 1965 to 1970. I do not remember any discussion, none, among grad students or between us and faculty, consistent with this story. Odd.

It is odd. I wonder where Hirsh got his information.