Presidential Personality and Performance by Alexander L. George & Juliette L. George

Author:Alexander L. George & Juliette L. George [George, Alexander L. & George, Juliette L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Politics, American Government, National, Political Science
ISBN: 9780813325903
Google: u5MVvgAACAAJ
Goodreads: 4932883
Publisher: Westview Press
Published: 1998-02-26T00:00:00+00:00

5

Assessing Presidential Character

Alexander L. George

I

Shortly after James Forrestal resigned as Secretary of Defense in late March 1949, the nation was shocked to learn that he was under treatment for a severe mental illness. Within a few months Forrestal committed suicide. This tragic occurrence, coming after Forrestal's highly successful career in government, directly challenged the long-standing mental-health mythology prevalent in Washington. The essence of the myth, as noted by Albert Deutsch at the time,1 was the belief that "no Very Important Person, under any circumstances, can possibly suffer from a psychosis." The denial of this possibility in official Washington was of a piece with widely shared beliefs that to suffer a mental illness was a disgrace that automatically and permanently rendered one unfit for public office.

It would go much too far to say that a new set of attitudes has replaced the mental-health mythology prevalent twenty-five years ago. Nonetheless, there has been some change in this respect, partly as a result of a better understanding of the nature of mental illness and mental health, and wider acceptance of modern preventive and therapeutic approaches. In addition, the disposition to challenge the mental-health mythology has been strengthened by concern over the possibility that an unbalanced political or military leader might trigger thermonuclear war.2

The possibility that major psychiatric impairment in an important official may not be detected or controlled in time to prevent a policy disaster is a matter for legitimate concern; nonetheless it identifies only a part—some would say only a small part—of the problem. There remains the broader and murkier question of the adverse effects that the personalities of leaders who are not ill may exert on public policy and the conduct of the affairs of state. Thus, paradoxically, the conventional wisdom that "every man has his breaking point" serves to obscure from view the fact that few political leaders actually break down under the stress of making difficult decisions or under the even greater stress of having to cope with the adverse consequences of decisions already made.

Certainly we need to know more about psychological and institutional coping mechanisms that help political leaders to remain emotionally intact, enabling them to continue functioning despite acute or persistent stress of various kinds. Narrowly construed, an individual who copes with stress without breaking down can be said to enjoy adequate mental health. But since we are concerned here with individuals who occupy high political office, we cannot limit attention to the consequences of a leader's performance under stress solely for his own emotional well-being. We must be at least equally concerned with the consequences for others of the ways in which he copes with latent or actual personal stresses of policy making and other tasks. Coping devices that are functional for the individual may sometimes have a dysfunctional impact on policy and political outcomes.

For this reason, broader criteria are needed than those traditionally applied by psychologists and psychiatrists in judging whether an individual copes adequately with stress. But to develop and apply broader criteria is not, as we shall see, an easy task.

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