Description
Book SynopsisThe impact of medical and psychological illness on foreign policy decision making. It discusses four cases in American history in which presidential decision making was affected by illness. Health problems have a bigger impact on important political decisions than people may have realized.
Trade Review“McDermott has written a significant, innovative study that adds greatly to the literature on political psychology and presidential leadership….The chapter on how JF’s use of steroids for treatment of Addison’s disease, and of narcotics and amphetamines, influenced his behavior with Khrushchev during the 1961 Vienna Conference is especially riveting. Finally, the implications of McDermott's analysis are brought to bear on the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, with some final thoughts on presidential care….Essential.” E. C. Dreyer, University of TulsaChoice
Table of Contents1. Introduction; 2. Aging, illness, and addiction; 3. The exacerbation of personality: Woodrow Wilson; 4. Leading while dying: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1943–45; 5. Addicted to power: John F. Kennedy; 6. Richard Nixon: bordering on sanity; 7. 25th Amendment; 8. Presidential care.
