Presidential Leadership, Illness, and Decision Making [Paperback]

The impact of medical and psychological illness on presidential foreign policy decision making.This book examines the 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.This book examines the 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.This book is about how illness affects the behavior of American presidents. It discusses four cases in American history of presidential decision making being affected by illness. The main purpose of this book is to show that health problems have a bigger impact on important political decisions than people may have realized. This book differs from the competition because it focuses primarily on foreign policy, where a president has greater freedom of authority, and also features detailed analysis of historical case studies.1. Introduction; 2. Aging, illness, and addiction; 3. The exacerbation of personality: Woodrow Wilson; 4. Leading while dying: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 194345; 5. Addicted to power: John F. Kennedy; 6. Richard Nixon: bordering on sanity; 7. 25th Amendment; 8. Presidential care.McDermott has written a significant, innovative study that adds greatly to the literature on political psychology and presidential leadership&.The chapter on how JFs use of steroids for treatment of Addisons 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 thoughtló¿