Can Bono Save The Third World?

In Washington, the issue's near-zero sex appeal actually played to Bono's advantage. He knew the subject better than the suits across the desk. "Not that there was incredible opposition, but incredible disregard," says Sachs, who attended many meetings. The two argued that the Third World was held in the equivalent of a debtors' prison, unable ever to get out. Politicians are by now used to hearing the complaints of pampered celebrities. But Bono brought a different game, says one senior administration official. "Other celebrities like Bonnie Raitt would come in and tell you they want to save the whales, and you'd say, yes, we like whales, whales are good. But here's a guy who comes in and he's telling you what Jeff Sachs is thinking. He'd say, 'I understand, that's just what Jim Wolfensohn said,' and then you'd realize he has talked to an enormous number of people."

The progress so far has made splashy headlines. But it hasn't brought dramatic change for the debtor nations. Much of the G8 pledge forgave portions of debt that were realistically unpayable. "There's a lot of ambiguity and a lot of negotiating ahead," says Sachs. "And so far, not a penny of relief." But the headlines are important, he says; the Bono campaign illustrates that public image operates as capital, too, by drawing attention to the cause. "A hundred billion dollars," says Bono. "Not bad take-home for a year's work."

After a New Year's performance in Washington, he is now recording with the band, trying to make up for a year of living unhiply. Bono is wiser for his Prada paces in the corridors of power. "You grow up with this idea of us and them, that all politicians are full of s---t," he says. "Now I see their life is the art of the possible, and not much is possible." He remembers luminous moments with various politicians, or the pope's "brilliant" shoes ("bootleg Polish Gucci loafers," Geldof called them). Yet he is not seduced by the political world. "They work harder than I thought they did. And they have duller lives." He snaps back into rock-star mode. Let me tell you, he says, about the new album.

Michael Hirsh and Weston Kosova

© 2000