The early Mont Pèlerin Society was so dubious about public interaction that it risked attaining, as Hayek regretfully acknowledged, the reputation of a "secret society." The public reserve of freemarket advocates provided implicit support for the notion that it was a philosophy cultivated by and for elites, in contradiction to the compassion of their redistributionist foes. In contrast, Friedman's extraordinary skills as a rhetorician were augmented by his unfl agging energy and constant willingness to expound his public policy suggestions to anyone who was willing to listen. After the publication of Capitalism and Freedom he used every available media venue to try to pop u lar ize his ideas, including university lectures, po liti cal stump speeches, newspaper editorials, magazine columns, audiotaped discussions, massmarket paperbacks, and even a Public Broadcasting System documentary. Between the early 1960s and the end of the Reagan presidency, he was an omnipresent generator of ideas in the American public sphere.

Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, loc. 497