THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: Presidential Medical Secrets

President Donald Trump recently had his annual medical check up,
and his physician reported he is very fit. Considering his robust daily
schedule, there is no reason to doubt the report, but the president will
be over 70 when he runs for re-election next year, and many of his most
serious potential Democratic opponents will also be over 70, and even
older than he will be.

In the past, presidential medical condition reporting has often kept
important information from the public, beginning perhaps with the
case in 1893 when President Grover Cleveland, shortly after beginning
his second term in office, was diagnosed with a mouth tumor, requiring
immediate surgery. The public was told that Cleveland was going on a
fishing trip to Cape Cod on a private yacht.

In fact, the yacht “Oneids” secretly anchored off Long Island, and with
six of the nation’s top surgeons aboard, the tumor was removed. The
president’s trademark bushy moustache subsequently hid the evidence
of the surgery in the weeks hat followed after Cleveland reappeared in
public. The incident was only revealed years later, after the president
died, by one of the surgeons.

A quarter of a century later, President Wilson suffered a debilitating
stroke while in office, and the information was kept secret from the
public for the remainder of his term --- as his wife assumed de facto
control of the White House, and the government.

Two decades after that, the news that President Franklin Roosevelt
was dying was kept secret by his physicians during his fourth election
campaign. He died shortly after his inauguration in 1945 after he chose
Harry Truman to be his vice presidential running mate in 1944,
replacing the incumbent Vice President Henry Wallace who was an
open admirer of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

In 1960, John F. Kennedy ran for president and won, although he and
his physicians knew he had then-fatal Addison’s (kidney) Disease.
Today, this disease is treatable, but then it was fatal, and if he had not
been assassinated in 1963 and had run for re-election 1964, he might
well have not lived out his second term. Kennedy was also heavily
drugged to alleviate his pain from the disease throughout his short
presidency, a fact also kept from the public.

During his time in office, President Ronald Reagan had cancer surgery,
but it was not revealed as such in public.

Wilson’s, Franklin Roosevelt’s, and John Kennedy’s ailments clearly
affected their performances as president.

With so many senior men and women running for president in 2020,
and the extraordinary daily physical demands made by this job, it
would seem important to have  an objective assessment of each
candidate’s physical condition before the election season begins in
earnest.

In 1893, President Cleveland and his advisors worried that news of his
illness might negatively affect the stock market. Today, and going
forward, such a physical disability in the White House would likely
affect much more than that.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright (c) 2019 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.