Reagan's Alzheimer's and Wilson's Thrombosis

Jan 15, 2011 Michael Streich

Wilson and First Lady After His Stroke - Library of Congress Image

Several of America's greatest presidents suffered from disabilities and long-term illnesses, but Woodrow Wilson was incapacitated part of his second term.

Ron Reagan’s new book, My Father at 100, with a publication date of January 18, 2011, postulates that President Ronald Reagan, first elected in 1980 at the age of sixty-nine, may have shown early signs of Alzheimer’s disease while still in the White House. If true, Reagan would not have been the first chief executive to suffer from illness while in office. A number of U.S. presidents were at times incapacitated, but the most notable example is Woodrow Wilson who, in 1919, was disabled for seventeen months after suffering from thrombosis of the brain.

Woodrow Wilson’s Physical and Mental Health in 1919

Wilson had always suffered from headaches and minor strokes. Historian Page Smith writes that, “The man who aspired to become the twenty-eighth president of the United States was a physical wreck.” On September 3, 1919, the day Wilson boarded a train in Washington, DC to take his plan for a League of Nations to the American people, he was already physically exhausted.

Wilson’s physician, Dr. Cary Grayson, strenuously argued against the 9,981 mile trip during which Wilson would deliver an average of ten speeches a day. But Wilson’s physical ailments were balanced by an indomitable will and determination. His mind was clear, his speeches lucid. Yet the signs of exhaustion became more evident at every stop.

While in Paris attending the Versailles peace conference that ended World War I, Wilson suffered from influenza, or so his doctors believed. There was even a nasty and unfounded rumor that Wilson had contracted syphilis. It may have been the onset of the thrombosis that would, in September, incapacitate him. By the time his train arrived in Spokane, he developed double-vision. The high altitudes exacerbated his asthma and intensified his headaches.

Wilson’s Schedule leads to a Complete Physical Breakdown

Wilson had a medical history of hypertension, occasional memory loss, and cerebrovascular disease. Since early life as a college student, he suffered from indigestion. The intense schedule Wilson himself approved in September 1919 was an itinerary for a medical disaster. As his train sped south to California, Wilson displayed twitching in his face. Insomnia drained his last remaining energy.

After leaving Pueblo, Colorado, Wilson suffered a massive stroke. He lost all feeling in his left arm and leg. The presidential train was rerouted back to Washington where Wilson was rushed to the White House. For the next seventeen months, Wilson would remain on the second floor while his second wife Edith acted as liaison between all those who attempted to see the president. In recollections published by the chief usher at the time, Ike Hoover “would speak of countless deceptions carried out at the White House during Wilson’s illness.” (See Phyllis Lee Levin, below)

Presidential Illnesses Kept from the American Public

Wilson’s incapacitation was never revealed to the public, the Congress, reporters, and even certain members of his Cabinet. In much the same way, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s polio was never published and no photographs of him in a wheelchair were ever disseminated. Critics have postulated that FDR’s illness hastened his frailty, contributing to hand-shake decisions made at the 1945 Yalta Conference that ultimately benefited Soviet Russia.

Writer and columnist Richard Reeves wrote in 2003 about John F. Kennedy: “…few people knew or suspected that the man entrusted with the fate of nations was always accompanied by doctors and aides carrying an array of steroids, amphetamines, painkillers and other pills and potions that kept him alive and going day after day.”

Biographers of Abraham Lincoln, perhaps the greatest U.S. president, suggest that he suffered from bouts of melancholy. Lincoln left evidence of periods of depression and a mild case of smallpox in 1863. His illness was kept from the public.

President James Garfield was incapacitated from July through September 1881 after being shot in an assassination attempt. The executive branch functioned through Garfield’s secretary. In this case, however, the public knew the facts and when Garfield died Chester Arthur became the next president.

Ronald Reagan and Alzheimer’s Disease

If Ron Reagan’s observations about his father ever prove to be true, they will never match the realities of the Wilson White House of 1919 or other celebrated cases of presidential ailments and disabilities. Lincoln, Wilson, Kennedy, and Reagan are considered great presidents, “larger than life” and served at crucial periods in American History. Like other great men and women in history, they refused to succumb to personal disabilities in order to achieve their perceptions of a greater good.

Sources:

• Phyllis Lee Levin, Edith and Woodrow: The Wilson White House (Scribner, 2001)
• Richard Reeves, “JFK: Secrets and Lies,” Reader’s Digest, April 2003
• Gene Smith, When the Cheering Stopped: the last years of Woodrow Wilson (William Morrow and Company, 1964)
• Page Smith, America Enters the World: A People’s History of the Progressive Era and World War I (McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1985)
• Ronald C. White, Jr., Lincoln’s Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural (Simon & Schuster, 2002)

Copyright Michael Streich. Contact the author to obtain permission for republication.