Lyndon Johnson’s press secretary George Reedy once said that anyone who runs for president should be immediately involuntarily committed to a mental institution because they are clearly deranged. Reedy’s observation was insightful, but not in the way he meant it.
Recent psycho-historical research appears to demonstrate that good mental health, while fine for the country in times of peace and tranquility, may be a detriment when crises or war befall us. At times like those, the researchers say, we do much better if our presidents suffer from at least a little mental illness.
The classic case they recite is that of John F. Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis, when the planet came closer to nuclear annihilation than it ever has. Kennedy, as his biographers tell us, was likely bipolar and beset by innumerable physical disabilities that greatly affected his mental health, exacerbated by frequent injections of massive doses of amphetamines and steroids. Fortuitously, his lifelong battles with Addison’s disease, severe back pain and the mental strains they caused, rendered him supremely resilient and realistic, qualities that the experts point to in arguing their premise. The country, according to the researchers, benefitted from having a president whose mental illness and physical challenges prepared him for a time when resilience and realism were demanded.
In contrast, the research concluded that George W. Bush came to office in sound mental health and was able to perform reasonably well in peacetime, but proved ill-equipped for wartime leadership, as evidenced by the Iraq and Afghanistan debacles. While the research pointed to numerous other examples of presidents and other leaders, the contrast between JFK and Bush was starkest in making the point that peacetime prowess does not translate into wartime or crisis competence.
So, perhaps the question should be asked: Would we be in a better position to manage crises if we had two presidents, one more competent to govern in peacetime who then steps aside (temporarily) during crises or wartime so that the other one could guide us through the emergency?
The closest we ever came to a co-presidency was the notion thrown about during the run-up to the 1976 Republican national convention, when Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan were battling for the nomination. Of course, that was different because the proposition was that the nominal president and vice president would govern jointly. Both Ford and Reagan were deemed mentally healthy by psycho-historians, and fortunately did not face major crises. Reagan, however, faced two lesser ones — the disastrous Marine deployment into Beirut and Iran-Contragate — and badly mishandled both.
Lyndon Johnson’s press secretary George Reedy once said that anyone who runs for president should be immediately involuntarily committed to a mental institution because they are clearly deranged. Reedy’s observation was insightful, but not in the way he meant it.
Recent psycho-historical research appears to demonstrate that good mental health, while fine for the country in times of peace and tranquility, may be a detriment when crises or war befall us. At times like those, the researchers say, we do much better if our presidents suffer from at least a little mental illness.
The classic case they recite is that of John F. Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis, when the planet came closer to nuclear annihilation than it ever has. Kennedy, as his biographers tell us, was likely bipolar and beset by innumerable physical disabilities that greatly affected his mental health, exacerbated by frequent injections of massive doses of amphetamines and steroids. Fortuitously, his lifelong battles with Addison’s disease, severe back pain and the mental strains they caused, rendered him supremely resilient and realistic, qualities that the experts point to in arguing their premise. The country, according to the researchers, benefitted from having a president whose mental illness and physical challenges prepared him for a time when resilience and realism were demanded.
In contrast, the research concluded that George W. Bush came to office in sound mental health and was able to perform reasonably well in peacetime, but proved ill-equipped for wartime leadership, as evidenced by the Iraq and Afghanistan debacles. While the research pointed to numerous other examples of presidents and other leaders, the contrast between JFK and Bush was starkest in making the point that peacetime prowess does not translate into wartime or crisis competence.
So, perhaps the question should be asked: Would we be in a better position to manage crises if we had two presidents, one more competent to govern in peacetime who then steps aside (temporarily) during crises or wartime so that the other one could guide us through the emergency?
The closest we ever came to a co-presidency was the notion thrown about during the run-up to the 1976 Republican national convention, when Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan were battling for the nomination. Of course, that was different because the proposition was that the nominal president and vice president would govern jointly. Both Ford and Reagan were deemed mentally healthy by psycho-historians, and fortunately did not face major crises. Reagan, however, faced two lesser ones — the disastrous Marine deployment into Beirut and Iran-Contragate — and badly mishandled both.
The Athenians devised something roughly like this idea 2,500 years ago, and triumphed over impossible odds at the battles of Marathon, Salamis and Plataea because of it. When the Iroquois went to war, the Seneca sachems took over Confederacy leadership because they were better suited to leading during conflict.
We don’t know, and psycho-historians cannot determine, whether Miltiades, Callimachus or the Seneca chiefs suffered from mental illness — the written accounts are too sparse — but it was clear that the Greeks and Iroquois understood something about different competencies when choosing their wartime v. peacetime leaders.
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney appear to fall near the healthy end of the mental health continuum, so we need to brace ourselves if a serious crisis should emerge in the next four years.
Richard L. Hermann is a part-time Canandaigua resident and Canandaigua Academy graduate.
