Mc Cain, JFK, and the Health of Presidents
NEW YORK — A lot of smart people have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how and why President John F. Kennedy seemed to evolve from an indecisive fool in launching the Bay of Pigs invasion of April 1961 into the cool and calm commander defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962.
"Growth" or "experience" are the words favored by the many champions of the 35th president. "Luck" is the favorite of his detractors.
"Medication" is the conclusion of David Owen, who is both the former foreign secretary of Great Britain and a neurologist who specialized in the chemistry of the brain in his years as a young physician.
Lord Owen has just published "In Sickness and in Power: Illness in Heads of Government During the Last 100 Years" in London. (An American edition will soon be coming to a bookstore or Web site near you.) It is a fascinating and important piece of work, and I assume that its publication during this presidential cycle is no coincidence.
Conventional punditry has it that John McCain, the presumed Republican nominee, is getting a free ride in the media because of the intensity of the Democratic race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, but actually what we are seeing is the calm before the storms that will rage about McCain's age and health.
Owen, who had earlier written "The Hubris Syndrome" about the psychology of leaders, is back to brain chemistry this time, writing about the health (and its effects) of two dozen world leaders from Theodore Roosevelt to George W. Bush, from Neville Chamberlain to Pol Pot.
The longest section, 50 pages, is on Kennedy, as it should be. Much of the book is about the secrecy and lying used to cloud men's minds about the actual state of the health of leaders. JFK, though, was in a class by himself. The man looked like a god, but as his brother, Robert, once told me, he had every disease known to man. That was hyperbole, of course, but the truth of the president's health was such that Bobby once told a friend, "If a mosquito bites my brother, the mosquito dies."
Some of this is not new. (I have written a good deal about it myself.) Dr. Owen, however, brings a different kind of perspective to the subject, as both politician and physician, than do journalists or historians. And it is a very rich subject, because most of what he writes about was hidden at the time. Speaking only of the Americans cited, Owen talks about the possibility that Theodore Roosevelt had what we would now call bipolar disorder, that Woodrow Wilson, hidden in a dark room inside the White House, was unable to read, write or speak for months, that Dwight Eisenhower's physicians simply lied about the medical problems of his old-age presidency.
In Kennedy's case, Owen makes a point, which might help the 71-year-old McCain a bit: Every significant world leader of Kennedy's time, from 70-year-old Charles de Gaulle in France to 84-year-old Konrad Adenauer in West Germany, were in far better health than the 44-year-old American president. In the end, Owen concludes (as I did in "President Kennedy: Profile of Power") that because of changes in physicians, pharmaceuticals, diet and exercise, Kennedy was in significantly better health on the day he was assassinated than on the day he took office.
At the time of the Bay of Pigs, JFK was regularly taking at least a dozen prescription medicines, including testosterone, corticosteroids and procaine, for his Addison's disease, colon problems, back pain, urinary infections and half a dozen other ailments — all that plus shots of amphetamine concoctions. He also barely exercised in those days. Did that affect his energy and stamina and, more important, judgment? We will never know for sure, but Dr. Owen knows more about symptoms and side effects than most.
A year and a half later, when Soviet missiles aimed at the United States were discovered on Cuba, many of the president's medical excesses had been curbed, mostly due to the heroic work of Adm. George Burkley, a Navy physician, and Hans Kraus, an Austrian trainer, who restored Kennedy's body and presumably cleared his mind, substituting exercise and therapy for many drugs. Did that improve Kennedy's judgment? Almost certainly.
These are fascinating questions in a time now of fewer secrets. So, if you think John McCain will somehow get a free ride during the general election campaign, think again. By the time this is over, the questions and answers we hear about the Republican's health might be the equivalent of a semester of medical school.
Column Archive
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LOS ANGELES — Face it: "Electability" is just another way of saying Barack Obama is black. The overuse of the word right now is a way of assuring voters, Democrat and Republican, that if they do not want or could not abide a black president, they are not alone.
Enough Already With The Fake Debates
LOS ANGELES — This campaign is SO over. It is hard to imagine a debate worse than the Clinton-Obama stand-up on Wednesday night in Philadelphia. In case you missed them between what seemed like a hundred commercials, Sen. Hillary Clinton, the shorter white one, and Sen. Barack Obama, the taller black one, answered (or endured) a road-show production of "Dumb and Dumber," starring Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos.
Hillary Clinton: The Big Mistake
LOS ANGELES — Last Thursday, about a year too late, I read the "2008 Delegate Selection Rules for the Democratic National Convention." Not a fun read, I must add, which may be the reason Sen. Hillary Clinton, or her people, and most of the press, did not read or understand its 25 dense pages.
On the Matter of Torture
LOS ANGELES — The order from the commander in chief regarding torture of prisoners was clear: "It has been recognized at all times that this manner of interrogating human beings, of putting them under torture, produces nothing good. The unfortunates say whatever comes into their heads, and everything they think we want to know."
Is Mc Cain the Real Mc Coy?
LOS ANGELES — I would guess that Sen. John McCain has about a 1-in-3 chance of being the next president of the United States. It's a tough slog when you're running under the crest of one of the worst presidencies we've ever had — in the middle of a recession, and a hateful war and hated occupation he says we will stick with even if it takes a hundred years.
Hearing The Obama Speech
LOS ANGELES — If Barack Obama is elected president, his speech on race in America will be remembered as one of the greatest in the country's history. If he loses, it will still be remembered as a terrific speech, an astonishing display of grace under pressure.
To Hell With The Fallen Hero
NEW YORK — How intellectual, how literate, how urbane is Manhattan? Well, where else can you find people at lunch speaking Latin?
The Way The Press Really Works
LOS ANGELES — "Media 101 With Professor Obama" was the headline the Los Angeles Times put over a short story about Barack Obama's walk to the back of his campaign plane to scold reporters for going "squishy" on Hillary Clinton.
Ah, To Be Young And In Politics!
LOS ANGELES — You couldn't ask for much better than this — at least if you're a reporter. Depending on their personal preferences, Republicans or Democrats might have their problems with Tuesday's results in Texas and Ohio, but for those of us looking for trouble — and that is our business — there is something to be said for a Democratic tie (of sorts), with the Clintons controlling the old guard and Barack Obama leading the new party.
Why Hillary Stumbled
LOS ANGELES — The "fellas" who worked for Ronald Reagan — he called them that because he couldn't remember their names — rarely saw the boss angry. But James Lake, a campaign press secretary, did, just once.
The Streets are Alive with the Sound of Politics
LOS ANGELES — A French visitor was amazed to see that in every tavern he visited — and "bar-room," a new word to him — Americans of all classes, workmen and rich men, were talking and arguing about politics. Elections and candidates, and ideas, too, seemed to be the entertainment of America.
The Election and The Press: Great Job!
LOS ANGELES — Yes, I still use AOL as my home page, probably because I'm too lazy to move on. And, yes, I start many days growling in hazy anger because folks in cyberspace seem to think Britney Spears is to the United States in 2008 what Winston Churchill was to England in 1940. But last Wednesday, I was even madder than usual when the first headline that popped up was: "Media Gets It Wrong Again."
The Campaign Begins To Look More Ordinary
LOS ANGELES — Let it be known that the old French maxim that the more things change, the more they stay the same applies in the United States as well, at least as one considers this presidential campaign so far.
An Election To Try Men's Souls
PALO ALTO, Calif. — These are the times, this is the election, that will reveal men's (and women's) souls.
As The World Turns: Cell Phones Replace Letters
PARIS — My mother, Dorothy Reeves, was a teller at the Trust Company of New Jersey, the big bank where Bergen Avenue ran into Journal Square in Jersey City. That was the reason when I first saw an automated teller machine, I vowed never to touch one, because they would inevitably throw tellers out of work.
McCain: The Last Man Standing
BERLIN — It was a distinct pleasure to be back in Berlin on the night Sen. John McCain won the New Hampshire Republican primary and was being hailed coast-to-coast as his party's front-runner. That may be a dubious distinction, but for me it seemed vindication for a prediction I had made right here early last September.
Looking at Iowa from Afar
PARIS — Watching the end of the Iowa caucus elections from afar these days is hardly what it used to be. In the old days, we used to check into a big hotel with sketchy international television or go over to a U.S. embassy to see Armed Forces Network feeds of the action back home. Now, with CNN and CNBC (along with the BBC, France 24 English and even Al Jazeera English), you felt like you were in Des Moines again.
