HOW ILLNESS IN WORLD LEADERS HAS AFFECTED

HISTORY

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NARCISSISTIC PERSONALITY DISORDER (NPD).

• Defined as excessive preoccupation with power, prestige and vanity.

• Unable to see the damage done to themselves and others.

• Exaggerated feelings of self importance.• Sense of entitlement.• Lack of empathy. • Affects 1% of the population and formerly

known as megalomania.

• THE ONLY WAY TO DEAL WITH A PERSON WITH TYPE A NARCISSISTIC PERSONALITY DISORDER IS AVOIDANCE.

WORLD LEADERS WITH NPD.• Mao Tse Tung.

• Stalin.

• Hitler.

• Napoleon.

DEMENTIA.

• Dementia is a set of symptoms including memory loss, difficulty with thinking, judgement, language and or problem solving, and is progressive.• Common causes of dementia are

Alzheimers disease, and a series of strokes.

World leaders with Dementia.

• Woodrow Wilson in his second term.• Paul Van Hindenburg.• Ramsay MacDonald.• Winston Churchill after 1951.• Harold Wilson in his final office as prime

minister.• Ronald Reagan in his late second term.

HUBRIS SYNDROME.

• Power in world leaders can become intoxicating and affect their action and decision making. • The Greeks called it hubris syndrome • They took comfort in the knowledge

that the Gods would punish the guilty ones (nemesis).

WORLD LEADERS WITH HUBRIS SYNDROME OR TENDENCY.

• FDR (hubristic tendency).• LLOYD GEORGE (hubris syndrome).• GEORGE W BUSH (hubristic tendency).• TONY BLAIR (hubris syndrome).• MARGARET THATCHER (hubris syndrome).

BIPOLAR DISORDER.

• Originally called manic depressive psychosis.• A mental disorder characterised by

periods of elevated mood (hypomania) and periods of depression.• A more minor variant is known as

cyclothymic personality disorder.

WORLD LEADERS WITH BIPOLAR DISORDER.

• Teddy Roosevelt.• Abraham Lincoln.• LBJ.• Winston Churchill.

WORLD LEADERS WITH HISTORY OF ALCOHOL DEPENDENCE OR ABUSE.

• Herbert Asquith (“squiffy”).• Winston Churchill.• Richard Nixon.• George W Bush.• Ulysses S. Grant• Boris Yeltsin• Also George Brown, John Smith, Joseph McCarthy,

Franklin Pierce.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 1809 to 1865.

He suffered with depression. He used to say “when I am alone I dare not carry a penknife”. He may also have had episodes of hypomania so maybe the correct diagnosis would be bipolar disorder (formerly manic depressive psychosis).

He was shot behind the left ear on April 14th 1865, by James Wiles Booth, (his guard had gone over the road for a drink). The wound was unsurvivable and he immediately lost consciousness and died nine hours later.

It was 5 days after Robert E lee signed surrender terms.

GROVER CLEVELAND 1837 to 1908.

• He was the only president to serve two non consecutive terms as president, 1885 to 1889 and 1893 to 1897.

• In 1893 he complained of soreness of the roof of his mouth.• He was sat upright in a chair attached to the mast of the yacht

Oneida in New York Harbour, and given a general anaesthetic by a dentist with anaesthetic experience (a brave man indeed). Part of his upper jaw and hard palate were removed; this took less than an hour. The surgeon must have been very skilful (or foolhardy), and when the story leaked to the press it was strenuously denied.

• He was given a dental prosthesis after, enabling him to talk properly, and without a change in appearance.

• It was a verrucous carcinoma with a low potential for metastasis.

JAMES GARFIELD 1831 TO 1881.

• James Garfield became 20th president on March 4th 1881.

• On July 2nd 1881 he was shot by Charles Guiteau at the Baltimore and Potomac train station in Washington DC. One bullet grazed his shoulder and the second entered his back at L1, missing the spine, and coming to rest behind the pancreas.

• Doctors probed the entry wound with dirty fingers and unsterilised instruments, looking for the bullet.

• He died of sepsis on September 19th 1881.

WILLIAM MCKINLEY 1843 TO 1901.• 6 months into his second term as 25th president of USA on 6th

September 1901 Mckinley was shot in Buffalo, NY by Leon Czolosz.• The first bullet grazed McKinley but the second bullet entered his

abdomen and was never found.• He was taken to a nearby hospital and was operated on by a

gynaecologist who had no experience of abdominal wounds. The operating theatre was makeshift with no abdominal retractors and inadequate lighting.

• The wound was not adequately cleaned, and Mckinley was nearly 60 and overweight. He died of sepsis on September 14th 1901.

• Autopsy showed the bullet had passed through his stomach, transverse colon, and left kidney. It also showed he was suffering from cardiomyopathy.

KING EDWARD V11th• On June 24th 1902 King Edward Seventh had an appendicectomy

at Buckingham Palace.• He was 59 years old, obese, bearded, a smoker, and with

obstructive sleep apnoea.• The anaesthetist was Sir Frederick Hewitt and the surgeon Sir

Frederick Treves, both being knighted before the operation. The story is that before the operation the surgeon was given lunch at the palace and the anaesthetist had to go off and find himself a sandwich, “plus ca change , plus c’est la meme chose”.

• Ether anaesthesia was administered and the King “turned purple”. Dr Hewitt grasped his beard and relieved the obstruction.

• The operation was a success.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT 1858 TO 1919.

• Teddy Roosevelt was 26th president from 1901 to 1909. He suffered with bipolar-1 disorder and asthma. He undertook body building exercises and became a “magnificent specimen of manhood”. He was a man of phenomenal energy.

• On October 14th 1912 campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin he was shot in the chest. The bullet was slowed down by passing through his steel eye glass case and a 50 page copy of his speech in his breast pocket. Since he was not coughing blood he correctly concluded that it was not serious (the bullet had lodged in his chest wall) and despite the bloodtained shirt continued with a 90 minute speech. The bullet was never removed.

VLADIMIR ULYANOV (LENIN) 1870 to 1924.

• He assumed power in the October (Julian calendar) revolution of 1917, and remained as leader during the Russian Civil War 1917 to 1922.

• On 30th August 1918 he was shot twice by Fanny Kaplan, one bullet passing through his neck and puncturing part of his left lung, and stopping near his right collar bone, and the other bullet lodging in his left shoulder.

• He never fully regained his health. • The mental strains of leading a revolution, and

fighting a civil war, working 16 hours daily and his physical debilitation consequent to the wounds (one of the bullets was removed in 1922), led to a series of strokes. The first stroke was in May 1922, the second in December 1922 causing a right hemiplegia, and the third in March 1923 which ended his career.

• He died on 24th January 1924, aged 53.• There are also reports that he had neurosyphilis.

• On hearing of Lenin’s death Churchill commented,

• “Russia’s greatest misfortune was Lenin’s birth, their second greatest misfortune was his early death”.

• His incapacity made him unable to prevent the rise of Stalin.

WOODROW WILSON 1856 TO 1924.

• Woodrow Wilson was a severe hypertensive before he became the 28th president in 1913. He had neurological incidents as a result of high blood pressure from 1889 onwards, and retinal artery changes were noted as early as 1906.

• He was president for two terms (1913 to 1921) during a crucial period in world history, and in his second term had a series of small lacunar strokes producing progressive dementia.

• On 8th January 1918 he enunciated to Congress his 14 points, the basis for a peace programme, and which led to the November 11th 1918 armistice.

• In 1919 he attended the Paris Peace Conference which took place from 18th January 1919 to 28th June 1919 when the Treaty of Versailles was signed.

• During this time his mental faculties were impaired due to cerebrovascular disease secondary to his hypertension. Had he been fit it is possible that a treaty less penal to Germany would have been signed.

• In the last week of September 1919 he suffered a progressive cerebral artery thrombosis to the right hemisphere of his brain (a stroke). He developed complete paralysis of the left side of his body, slurring of his speech and visual defect.

• His physician Cary Grayson, and his wife lied about his condition.

• He continued as a seriously incapacitated president for a further 16 months (his wife Edith was spoken of as America’s first woman President).

• During this time the crucial negotiations leading to the establishment of the League of Nations were taking place (America never joined, had they done so WW2 may have been avoided).

• He should have been succeeded by his vice president (Thomas Marshall).

• In 1967 his complex case became a motivation for the passage of the 25th amendment to the constitution of the United States, providing a way of dealing with just such a situation.

IOSIF DZHUGASHVILI (STALIN) 1879 TO 1953.

• Leader of Soviet Union from 1923 to 1953.• Narcissistic personality disorder with paranoia.• Responsible for between 20 and 40 million unnatural

deaths in The Collectivisation programme 1928 to 1940, The Holodomor in the Ukraine 1932 to 1933, The Great Terror 1937 to 1938, The Purges, and The Gulag Archipelago.

• In addition an estimated 27 million Soviet troops and civilians died during The Great Patriotic War 1941 to 1945.

CALVIN COOLIDGE 1872 TO 1933

• “Silent Cal” became the 30th president in 1923 when Warren Harding suddenly died. He was reelected in 1924. He was a man of few words.

• “A wise old owl sat on an oak, The more he saw the less he spoke, The less he spoke the more he heard, Why can’t we be like that old bird”.

• He had amazed everybody by marrying a vivacious schoolteacher Grace.

• His ideal day was one in which nothing whatever happens.

• He used to sleep for up to 11 hours a day.• One Sunday on returning from church Grace

asked him what the sermon was about. “Sin” he replied. “Well what did the minister say about it” she asked. “He was against it” he replied.

• Retrospectively he has been diagnosed as having a major depressive illness whilst in office.

RAMSAY MACDONALD 1866 TO 1937.

• He led a Labour government in 1924, in 1929 to 1931, and a coalition government from 1931 to 1935.

• He suffered with depression and later on in his prime ministership began to develop Alzheimers disease.

• This was at a critical time in history during the rise of Hitler which was not dealt with satisfactorily.

FDR 1882 to 1945.

• FDR was arguably the most influential political leader of the 20th century.

• He contracted polio age 39 at a scout jamboree in NY State and became symptomatic at the family estate on Campobello Island, New Brunswick.

• He was paralysed in both legs from the hips down, and confined to a wheelchair.

• Of 35,000 photographs taken of him since contracting polio only 2 show him in the wheelchair.

• In the early stages of his presidency, which lasted from 1933 to his death in 1945, his health appeared excellent.

• In May 1941 he was diagnosed as having raised blood pressure and an iron deficiency anaemia and had two blood transfusions.

• During the period 1942 to 1944 his health deteriorated.

• His personal doctor was Admiral Ross McIntyre, an ENT surgeon!, who largely failed to recognise FDR’s deterioration.

• Eventually on 28th March 1944 Dr Howard Bruenn, a naval cardiologist, made the first proper medical examination of FDR for 11 years at the insistence of FDR’s daughter Anna.

• Bruenn found severe hypertension, a large heart and left ventricular failure, and said off the record that the presidents condition was “god awful”.

• McIntyre was not ready to accept Bruenn’s findings and only agreed to FDR receiving digitalis after Bruenn had bravely said that otherwise he would have nothing more to do with the case. Bruenn also instituted a low salt diet and a weight loss programme.

• Bruenn stated confidentially that it was impossible for FDR to run for a fourth term.

• In August 1944 FDR developed angina due to coronary artery disease and his blood pressure was 240/130.

• FDR ran for a fourth term, but showed insight into his health problems by naming the “extraordinary ordinary man” Harry S Truman as his running mate.

• In February 1945, shortly after being sworn in for a fourth term, FDR travelled by ship and plane to Yalta and back for the meeting with Churchill and Stalin.

• Here the future of Eastern Europe was decided.

• It is still highly contentious how important an issue FRD’s health was to the settlement.

• Towards the end of the conference FDR developed pulsus alternans.

• Churchill’s doctor Sir Charles Wilson (Lord Moran) could hardly fail to notice FDR’s condition and only gave him a short time to live.

• FDR died of a cerebral haemmorhage on 12th April 1945 in Warm Springs Virginia, he was 63 years old.

• On March 21st 1947 Congress passes the 22nd amendment to the Constitution of The United States of America, limiting any individual to a maximum of two terms as president.

• FDR is the only president to serve more than two terms.

ADOLF HITLER 1889 TO 1945.

• Hitler suffered with narcissistic personality disorder.

• He was addicted to amphetamines.• The origins of his disastrous (for the world)

accession to power were multifactorial, but the increasing dementia of octogenarian president Paul Von Hindenburg, hero of the battle of Tannenburg in WW1, was paramount.

• Thus the world suffered the catastrophic WW2.

FAMOUS QUOTES BY HARRY TRUMAN.

• I fired him (McArthur) because he wouldn’t respect the authority of the president. I didn’t fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but thats not against the law for Generals. If it was half to threequarters of them would be in jail.

• The buck stops here.• If you can’t stand the heat get out of the

kitchen.

• Comment to reporters after becoming president on the death of FDR. “Boys, if you ever pray, pray for me now. I don’t know whether you fellows ever had a load of hay fall on you, but when they told me yesterday what had happened , I felt like the moon, the stars and all the planets had fallen on me”.

• Letter to Paul Hume of Time magazine, “I have read your lousy review of Margaret’s concert and I’ve come to the conclusion that you are an eight ulcer man on a four ulcer job.....Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you’ll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes and perhaps a supporter below”.

MAO TSE-TUNG 1893 TO 1976• Mao seized power in 1949.• The Great Leap Forward 1958 to 1963 led to mass famines

unprecedented in history, particularly from 1959 to 1961.• The Cultural Revolution was from 1966 to 1976.• It is estimated that Mao was responsible for up to 80 million

unnatural deaths, eclipsing Stalin and Hitler.• Mao was a man in a hurry. Knowing his mortality he wanted to

get the changes he wanted made in China done in his lifetime, with no consideration for others.

• Mao was a heavy smoker and drinker all his life, and overweight, and in later life was beset by heart and breathing problems.

• He had narcissistic personality disorder.

WINSTON CHURCHILL 1874 to 1964.

• Churchill was prime minister from 1940 to 1945 and 1951 to 1955.

• He was a moderate to heavy drinker and smoker.• He suffered with bipolar disorder and would avoid

edges of platforms in case he jumped impulsively into the path of a train.

• In 1931 forgetting that in the USA they drive on the right he was hit by a taxi in New York City.

• His hypomania together with his powers or oratory enabled Britain to stay in the war during the dark days of 1940. Probably a saner prime minister like Halifax would have given in

• To Churchill America and FDR were the key to survival, and Churchill had the advantage of an American mother.

• Churchill’s sinking of the French Fleet at Mers el Kebir in July 1940 made Roosevelt realise that Britain wasn’t going to surrender, and he agreed to lendlease which before the sinkings he had refused.

• Churchill’s great fear was the U boat sinking of British shipping starving Britain into submission. Lendlease, the convoy system, Bletchley Park and Pearl Harbour saved Britain.

• In December 1941 shortly after Pearl Harbour (which gave him his first decent nights sleep since becoming prime minister because he knew Britain was safe) he probably had a heart attack in the White House.

• He had a severe stroke in June 1953 which affected his speech and walking ability. Anthony Eden the heir apparent was sick after his gall bladder operation in April 1953. The public were told Churchill was suffering from exhaustion.

• He had a mild stroke in December 1956, and a severe stroke in January 1965 from which he subsequently died.

George V1th Pneumonectomy, 23/9/51,Buckingham Palace.

• Clement Thomas was the surgeon and Robert Machray the anaesthetist assisted by Cyril Scurr who had to attach a wire between the oscilloscope (below) and a cold water tap. He survived the operation but died 5 months later.

ANTHONY EDEN

• Until 12th April 1953 he had lived a charmed life, then his luck ran out.

• Unlike two of his brothers he survived WW1.• He was charming and handsome and much

admired by the ladies.• He had a hat named after him.• He had been a successful foreign secretary

• On 12th April 1953 60yo surgeon Basil Hume performed gall bladder surgery on Eden.

• He was Eden’s choice, against other advice, because he had previously removed Eden’s appendix successfully.

• Hume was not an expert at biliary surgery and had to delay the operation for an hour while he composed himself.

• The three hour operation was a disaster, Eden’s common bile duct was damaged and his health permanently ruined.

• He underwent many subsequent operations, 3 in the USA.

• He was on a combination of amphetamines and barbiturates often, including during Suez.

• During the Suez crisis of 1956 he had a fever of 106 Fahrenheit due to cholangitis. This probably affected his judgement.

DWIGHT EISENHOWER 1890 to 1969.

• Eisenhower served two terms as president from 1952 to 1960.

• On September 24th 1955 he developed severe chest pain at 2.30 in the morning. His doctor Major General Howard Snyder correctly diagnosed a heart attack and gave the president morphine, a coronary dilator and an anticoagulant, but in order to avoid public alarm took the enormous risk of not admitting him to hospital for 12 hours.

• Eisenhower also had a stroke in November 1957 from which he recovered.

• Being a VIP is dangerous to your health.

JFK.

• He suffered with Addison’s disease, hypothyroidism and chronic severe low back pain.

• He was on many medications including steroids and amphetamines.

• On 17th April there was the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion.

• The Cuban Missile Crisis was from 14th to 28th October 1962.

VASIL ARKHIPOV 27th OCTOBER 1962.

• The Soviet diesel powered submarine B59 which unbeknown to the Americans carried a nuclear torpedo, was detected in the quarantine area (international waters), during the Cuban Missile crisis.

• The gungho US Admiral Anderson, who had fallen out with US secretary of defence Robert MacNamara, ordered depth grenades to be dropped to force it to the surface.

• The submarine was out of touch with Moscow• The captain Valentin Savitsky believing war may have

started wanted to launch the nuclear torpedo.

27th OCTOBER 1962.

• According to protocol 3 officers had to agree in order to launch.

• They were Captain Savitsky, the political officer Semonovich Maslennikov and a third officer Vasil Arkhipov.

• Maslennikov agreed with Savitsky. Arkhipov who was only 36 and under enormous pressure said no and explained his reasoning and prevailed.

• The submarine surfaced and possibly, maybe probably, thermonuclear war was averted.

• In 2002 former US defence secretary Robert McNamara said we came very close to nuclear war.

LEONID BREZHNEV.

• For the last 10 years of his life Brezhnev, who was a heavy smoker and drinker, suffered every disease known to man. In the last years of his life the Soviet Union was governed by Andrei Gromyko, foreign secretary; Dmitry Ustinov, defence secretary; Mikhail Suslov, chief ideologist; and Yuri Andropov, KGB chief. Indeed these four took the crucial and disastrous decision to invade Afghanistan on Christmas Eve 1979, took no minutes of the decision, and presented a document for Brezhnev to sign to authorise it.

THE YOUNG BRITISH SOLDIER, 1895, RUDYARD KIPLING.

(DO WE NEVER LEARN).

• When you’re wounded and lying on Afghanistan’s plains,

• And the women come out to cut up what remains,

• Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains,• An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier,• So-oldier of the Queen.

YURI ANDROPOV.• Andropov became general secretary on 12th

November 1982.• In February 1983 age 68 he suffered total renal

failure, requiring dialysis.• He spent the remaining year of his life in the

Central Clinical Hospital west of Moscow. • March 8th 1983 Reagan’s “evil empire” speech.• September 1st 1983 KAL 007 shot down.• September 26th 1983 Petrov saves the world.• November 2nd_12th 1983 exercise Able Archer.

• On September 26th 1983 Petrov was (civilian fortunately) duty officer at the nuclear early warning command centre near Moscow, when the system (which was in its early stages after being opened and for which Petrov was aware there had been teething problems) reported a missile being launched from the USA. Contrary to protocol Petrov did nothing.

• Later the system reported 4 more missiles being launched. Again contrary to instructions Petrov did nothing.

• It was later determined that they were false alarms caused by a rare alignment of sunlight on high altitude clouds and a satellite orbit.

• Fortunately Andropov, who was perceived as being trigger happy and was terminally ill, was never notified.

• In January 2006 Petrov was personally honoured at the United Nations in New York City.

STANISLAV PETROV, THE MAN WHO SAVED THE WORLD BY DOING NOTHING.

KONSTANTIN CHERNENKO.

• He was general secretary from 13TH February 1984 to 10th March 1985.

• He was a heavy smoker and drinker.• He suffered with emphysema, right heart

failure and cirrhosis of the liver. • He died age 73.

RONALD REAGAN 1981 to 1989.

• He was shot on March 30th 1981 by John Hinkley. He was close to death on arrival at George Washington University Hospital.

• The bullet entered his left lung which collapsed and he lost over 3 litres of blood.

• He was stabilised in the emergency room with a chest drain and blood transfusion.

• He then had a thoracotomy and his life was saved.• It was many months until he recovered his health, • In his second term he had a right hemicolectomy for a

villous adenoma and developed early Alzheimers.

• In February 1987 White House chief of staff Donald Regan was forced to resign over the Iran Contra controversy.

• He was replaced by Howard Baker who found a badly demoralized White House staff over Ronald Reagan’s lack of attention to the duties of the presidency.

• All he wanted to do was watch movies and television at the residence.

• Baker considered applying section 4 of the 25th amendment, but after interviewing the president decided against that course of action.

VLADIMIR PUTIN.• He was born in Leningrad in 1952.• His parents were both 41 when he was born and were survivors of

the 872 day siege of Leningrad, in which there were up to 2 million deaths and in which in all of history is unequalled in terms of the resistance and refusal to surrender of the Russian people.

• Both his elder brothers died.• He had a very difficult upbringing in conditions of hardship

unimaginable to westerners.• NPD often has roots in childhood where family life is marked by

trauma and emotional chaos.• This may account for his narcissistic personality disorder and

bullying personality.

HILARY CLINTON.

• Hilary Clinton had a life threatening cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST) following a fall while secretary of state. It was the second time she had had a CVST.

• She is probably thrombophilic and probably on warfarin or rivaroxaban.

• Should she run for the presidency?

• MATERIAL FOR THIS PRESENTATION HAS BEEN COLLATED FROM THE INTERNET AND FROM

• “WHEN ILLNESS STRIKES WORLD LEADERS” BY JERROLD M. POST, M.D. AND ROBERT S. ROBINS.

• “IN SICKNESS AND IN POWER” BY DAVID OWEN M.B.B.S.

• “THE IMPACT OF ILLNESS ON WORLD LEADERS” BY BERT EDWARD PARK, M.D.