I wonder how many minds turned to Robert Caro’s magisterial biography of Lyndon Johnson when they saw footage of yesterday’s White House ceremony, at which Israel, Bahrain and the UAE signed the so-called Abraham Accords.
Caro’s ongoing multi-volume life of LBJ has everything. On one level, it is a political thriller. On another, it is a history of the US in the second half of the 20th century. It is so much more, besides, including a meditation on one of the enduring questions in history: can a bad person do good things?
Which brings us to Donald Trump’s role in securing peace between Israel and the UAE, with Bahrain now following and, soon, more Arab states. President Trump provides the latest incarnation of that question — the answer to which is plainly yes. History is littered with figures with whom one would rather not engage on a personal level, but whose contribution to humanity was immense.
Take, in our own times, Martin McGuiness and Ian Paisley. The latter was a bigot, who proudly trumpeted that bigotry and even flirted with paramilitaries. The former was almost certainly a murderer. For the bulk of their time on earth, they both lived lives that should have sent them to the hell in which they believed — and yet when they died they were widely and genuinely mourned, with a legacy of peace that endures to this day.
How about Steve Jobs? As close to a monster as the rules of the modern workplace allowed, but who used that monstrous ego and personality to change our world for the better. Or there is Henry Ford, a grotesque bully and a bigot beloved of Hitler and his circle. But one of the great industrialists, whose vision transformed capitalism and who enabled huge numbers of people to afford a car of their own.
More interesting, perhaps, than that simple question — and one reason why LBJ is so fascinating a figure — is a variation on it: can a bad man do good things for bad motives?
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