9 US presidents who hid their health problems to stay in office

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The illness can affect the ability of the president to perform his official duties, but throughout most of the history of the United States, many powerful people of this world have tried to keep their state of health in the strictest confidence, going to various tricks and tricks in order to keep their precious post.

The Founding Fathers foresaw the need for a lineage, and the Constitution states that a vice president becomes acting president if the chosen one dies, resigns, or weakens. But it did not take into account critical details, including the question of who has the right to declare the president unfit for office, when and how the president should return to office, and whether the vice president should remain president until the end of his term, or until a replacement is found.

Much time passed, and only after the assassination of John F. Kennedy did Congress pass the 25th Amendment, establishing clear protocol on what happens if a president or vice president resigns, becomes incapacitated, disabled, or dies.

1. George Washington

The first president to become seriously ill while in power was George Washington. Two months after the first term, Washington underwent surgery to remove the tumor, which left him lying in bed on his right side for six weeks. In his second year in office, he suffered a flu attack that threatened his hearing and vision. It was this incident that prompted the president to write a kind of confession:.

Diseases raged in America's early cities, and an outbreak of yellow fever in the summer of 1793 prompted George and the government to flee to the countryside. He managed to survive as those who managed to survive diphtheria, tuberculosis, smallpox, malaria, dysentery, sore throat and many other diseases. He eventually died of a throat infection, but after he left office.

2. John F. Kennedy

Most people envisioned John F. Kennedy as young and energetic. And this was done on purpose. Kennedy actually lived with constant pain, but his ill health was kept a closely guarded secret for fear of harming his political career. He suffered from allergies, stomach problems and chronic back pain, which were exacerbated by his service during World War II and required numerous surgeries. A back injury allegedly occurred in 1937 while he was a student at Harvard, and this initially disqualified him from military service. Before he was wounded, he was also ill. As a child, John suffered from gastrointestinal problems, which were later diagnosed as Addison's disease, an endocrine disorder. By a strange coincidence, one of Addison's symptoms, as well as a symptom of the steroids used to treat him, is hyperpigmentation, which may be responsible for John F. Kennedy's permanent "tan", as many viewers whispered about at every turn after his television debate with Richard Nixon …

3. William Henry Harrison

William Henry Harrison became one of the most "short-term" presidents when he died just thirty-four days after taking office from pneumonia, which he contracted on the day of his inauguration. He was the first president to die while in office, which meant there was no precedent for Vice President John Tyler's rise to power.

Although Tyler originally received the title of "Vice President, Acting President" from Congress, he was looking for a more permanent position. Eventually, he moved to the White House and took the oath of office as president, even giving his inaugural speech.

4. Grover Cleveland

In 1893, Grover Cleveland required surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in his mouth. To avoid media attention, he underwent surgery on a friend's yacht in Long Island Sound. A quarter of the upper palate was completely removed, an implant was inserted and returned to work. The audience knew nothing.

5. Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson nearly died of the 1918 influenza pandemic while negotiating with world leaders at the Paris Peace Talks. During the First World War, the flu claimed the lives of civilians and soldiers. Twenty million people eventually died from this disease worldwide.

Wilson's doctor lied when he told the press that the president caught a cold from the rain in Paris. The illness drained him out, and his aides became worried that it was preventing the president from negotiating. Ultimately, Wilson renounced his demands on French leader Georges Clemenceau, agreeing to the demilitarization of the Rhineland and the French occupation of it for at least fifteen years. As a result, the Treaty of Versailles was so cruel to Germany that it contributed to the rise of Adolf Hitler and the outbreak of World War II.

This was not the last time a doctor lied about the president's condition: in 1919, he suffered a series of strokes. From that moment on, the situation only worsened, and in October the president woke up to find himself partially paralyzed. His wife Edith took action while protecting his reputation and keeping the administration calm. She essentially acted as president, and the country remained in the dark about Wilson's true condition until his term expired in 1921.

6. Franklin Delano Roosevelt

The longest-term president of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, hid the seriousness of his polio from the American public, fearing that he would be considered weak.

He was diagnosed with polio in 1921 when he was thirty-nine years old. This was unusual because most of the polio victims at the time were children under the age of four. Roosevelt worked tirelessly to rebuild his body in the years following the polio infection. Since he was paralyzed, most of the time he moved in a specially designed wheelchair. As president, he wanted to demonstrate strength and masculinity, and so he invented a way to "walk" during public speaking. This included wearing special leg braces, using a cane and the hand of his son or trusted advisor. In addition, he asked the press to refrain from taking pictures while walking, “walking” and changing from a car to a wheelchair.

7. Dwight D. Eisenhower

During Dwight D. Eisenhower's tenure, he suffered a heart attack and stroke, surgery, and was also diagnosed with Crohn's disease. Concerned that he would not recover, Eisenhower wrote a confidential letter to his vice president, Richard M. Nixon, telling him what to do if he did not regain his abilities.

In it, he named Nixon as the man responsible for determining whether Eisenhower could fulfill his presidential duties. The letter was not legal, and Nixon took over the presidency only momentarily, once in 1955 after the president's heart attack and again during his 1956 operation.

8. Ronald Reagan

Five years after the end of his second term in office, Ronald Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. His son, Ron Reagan, stated that he saw signs of illness while his father was in the office. While there is little conclusive evidence that the 40th president suffered from Alzheimer's when he was commander-in-chief, rumors of dementia plagued Reagan throughout his first presidential campaign, with much focus on his age. What is confirmed is that he had several cases of cancer. In 1985, he had several polyps removed from his colon, and one of them turned out to be cancerous. Two years later, he had his basal cell epithelioma (skin cancer) removed from his nose.

The 25th Amendment was officially applied for the first time on July 13, 1985, when President Ronald Reagan assigned then-Vice President George W. Bush to perform his duties during colon cancer surgery. Bush became acting president when Reagan was administered general anesthesia. Less than eight hours later, Reagan notified the Senate that he was ready to resume his presidential duties.

9. George W. Bush

During his two-year presidency, George W. Bush referred to the 25th Amendment twice. On June 29, 2002, Bush referred to Section 3 of the 25th Amendment before going under anesthesia for a colonoscopy, and briefly made Vice President Dick Cheney acting president. He did the same thing again when he had another colonoscopy in 2007.

Continuing the topic of world leaders, read about which of them excelled in art besides politicswhy not so long ago Hitler's paintings were eagerly bought by Jews, but today his creations are in doubt, and how the works of Prince Charles became the property of Windsor Castle.