Cohn also probably couldn’t and wouldn’t. Cohn was great at what he did, he died deeply in debt to the federal government just like he wanted. But Cohn had intelligence that while subservient to the myriad chips on his shoulder, was real. Cohn could actually play people off each other and make people who hated him like him. And most of all Cohn could resist the urge to be in the spotlight if he even felt it at all. He had the cunning you only get when you have had to hide. And that’s how he was able to get what may very well be the closest person he ever had to a real romantic partner, Joe McCarthy, to be the face of the red and lavender scares and then to take the fall when the backlash came.

You can’t make a rich, privileged in every way, golden boy narcissist into Roy Cohn. Roy Cohn had distress tolerance and could use it when he needed to.