Volume 8, Number 2 · February 9, 1967
The Strange Case of Freud, Bullitt, and Woodrow Wilson: I
By Erik H. Erikson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson: Twenty-eighth President of the United States—A Psychological Study
by Sigmund Freud, by William C. Bullitt
Houghton, Mifflin, 307 pp., $6.00
Another bad book on Wilson would not necessarily call for review. Nor would a bad book by William C. Bullitt. A distinguished public servant, Ambassador Bullitt does not owe the world a good book, even though many public servants think they do. But a disastrously bad book on Wilson, written in collaboration with Sigmund Freud and carrying a subtitle that raises the issue of the American presidency itself must be reviewed. It is of concern to those who are carrying on Freud's work and recognize its fundamental grandeur even where it is most dated and most open to question. It is also of concern to historians who do not wish to shirk the task of giving a considered account of the ambiguities of greatness. But above all, it has a certain desperate relevance for all those who are aware of the indispensability of psychological insight in matters of war and peace—including the question of the wide personal margin permitted to the American president and his advisers.
Review, 4986 words
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