Moses’ own legend of absolute loyalty trapped him into defending a wrong subordinate

Evidence

None of the political commandments ingrained in Robert Moses by his Gamaliel had been ingrained more deeply than the rule stating that an executive gives subordinates absolute loyalty and support, and Moses’ belief in this particular commandment was reinforced by the iron bands of his personality. He had, to a remarkable degree, consciously made his “muchachos” extensions of himself: admitting to outsiders that one of them was wrong would be almost like admitting that he himself was wrong. … That legend was terribly important to Moses. He could not bear to have it defaced. He was its prisoner. Just three months earlier, in the seventieth-birthday interviews of which he had taken advantage to refurbish it, he had made a point of saying that his men “know I’ll always stand up and take the public beating for them.” He could not now publicly overrule one of them. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 4192

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A reputation built as strength—absolute loyalty—becomes a prison that forces self-sabotage. The legend becomes its own master; this is a durable insight about how public personas discipline their wearers.
• XREF: Pays off the standing theme that ‘Moses’ power rested on hiding behind popular causes’ and his image as protector of his men (ch29’s ‘at home the domineering public Moses deferred’). — connects to: Moses used up and discarded the people who served his purposes. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 2545; Moses’ allies framed his defense as protecting the state’s heritage. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 4571
• SEED: A germ for an essay on how self-cultivated legends of loyalty/strength invert into constraints—leaders made prisoners of their own mythology.