Volume 16, Number 1 · January 28, 1971
Blood, Sweat, & Cholesterol
By D.W. Harding
The Pathology of Leadership: A History of the Effects of Disease on 20th-Century Leaders
by Hugh L'Etang
Hawthorn Books, 218 pp., $6.95
George III and the Mad Business
by Ida Macalpine, by Richard Hunter
Pantheon, 407 pp., $10.00
The vulgarities of election campaigns, the bogus bonhomie of international tours, the airport genialities, the carefully planned informality of press conferences, all the stage management and flummery create such an implausible façade for political leaders that the educated may be tempted to give them no more importance than other figures of the entertainment world and to assume that the real business of politics is handled with computerlike impersonality in anonymous offices. Against this view there is only too much evidence from historical studies and political memoirs that national and international events really are affected, especially at crises, by men of flesh and blood—and not only flesh and blood but excessive cholesterol, failing pancreas, gallstones, spirochetes, enlarged prostates, 'slight' strokes…in addition to the uncertain side effects of surgical procedures and pharmaceutical supports abundantly available to keep top people functioning long after lesser men would have been retired on grounds of health.
Review, 2830 words
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