In Sickness and in Power or The Globalization of Poverty and the N W Order

In Sickness and in Power: Illnesses in Heads of Government During the Last 100 Years

Author: David Owen

The course of modern world history has been critically shaped by the physical and mental illnesses of heads of state, sometimes in the public eye but usually in secrecy. Democratic politicians as diverse as Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Churchill, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Pompidou, Mitterrand, Blair, George W. Bush, Chirac, and Sharon all lied about their health. Between 1906 and 2008 seven Presidents are judged to have been mentally ill while in office: Theodore Roosevelt (bipolar disorder), Taft (breathing-related sleep disorder), Wilson (major depressive disorder), Coolidge (major depressive disorder), Hoover (major depressive disorder), Johnson (bipolar disorder), and Nixon (alcohol abuse). Many despots-such as Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, and Robert Mugabe-have been branded by the press and public opinion as suffering mental illnesses. Lord Owen argues neither Hitler nor Stalin were "mad" in any sense the medical profession recognizes (whereas Mussolini and Mao had depression, possibly bipolar disorder). Something happens to some leaders' mental stability while in power that is captured by Bertrand Russell's phrase, "the intoxication of power." Hubristic behavior with excessive self-confidence is almost an occupational hazard for heads of government, as it is for leaders in other fields, such as business and the military, for it feeds on isolation and excessive deference. Owen argues that a medically definable condition called Hubris Syndrome affects some heads of government the longer they stay in office or after a specific triggering event such as 9/11. Recent leaders such as George W. Bush, Tony Blair, and Margaret Thatcher have developedHubris Syndrome. Symptoms include patterns of reckless behavior, bad judgment, and operational incompetence, often compounded by delusions of personal infallibility and divine exemption from political accountability. Lord Owen makes the cases that democratic societies need to implement new procedures for dealing with illness in their own heads of government, and that they need to empower the United Nations to use new procedures and means for removing despots whose behavior becomes so hubristic as to pose a grave threat to their own people or the world.

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgements     ix
Introduction     xi
Illness in heads of government during the last 100 years
1901-1953     3
1953-2007     60
Case histories
Prime Minister Eden's illness and Suez     109
President Kennedy's health     141
The Shah's secret illness     191
President Mitterrand's prostate cancer     220
The intoxication of power
Bush, Blair and the war in Iraq     253
Lessons for the future
Safeguarding against illness in heads of government     327
Conclusion     363
Notes     371
Index     393

Read also Citizen Worker or Investments

The Globalization of Poverty and the N W Order

Author: Michel Chossudovsky

In this new and expanded edition of Chossudovsky's international best-seller, the author outlines the contours of a New World Order which feeds on human poverty and the destruction of the environment, generates social apartheid, encourages racism and ethnic strife and undermines the rights of women. The result as his detailed examples from all parts of the world show so convincingly, is a globalization of poverty.

This book is a skilful combination of lucid explanation and cogently argued critique of the fundamental directions in which our world is moving financially and economically.

In this new enlarged edition -which includes ten new chapters and a new introduction-- the author reviews the causes and consequences of famine in Sub-Saharan Africa, the dramatic meltdown of financial markets, the demise of State social programs and the devastation resulting from corporate downsizing and trade liberalisation.

Published in 11 languages. More than 100,000 copies sold Worldwide.