Chapter 17

The Sick Man in the White House

Summary
      This chapter deals with the condition of President Franklin Roosevelt in April of 1944, as WWII was still underway and the Allies were making little headway. Admiral McIntire, the president's personal physician, and many other physicians had been checking up on him, and were very worried about his "congestive heart failure and hypertension," and prescribed a strict regimen for him to follow (279). The problem was that no one wanted to tell the president about his "god-awful" condition, including McIntire, and for good reason (279). As the Admiral, who stayed firm to his belief that the president "never had a heart problem," said, "You can't simply say to him, 'Do this or that'" (280, 279). FDR was a stubborn man who never "[exhibited] undue concern" for himself, and he especially did not want to give up and not run for a fourth term, no matter how bad his heart was (282). He could not quit at the climax of the war, and everyone knew it, and perhaps that is why no one disclosed any real details to him about his failing health.

Reflection
      Admiral McIntire's approach to FDR's health was not a very good one in my opinion. Keeping the truth from your patient (and yourself) can not possibly lead to a positive outcome, even though it didn't matter to Roosevelt, and he ran for a fourth term anyway. The Admiral's "look-see's" seemed careless to me - didn't he care about FDR's condition at all? If I had been given the honor of being the president's physician, I would have definitely been more thorough and honest with my very important patient.
      I wonder if the advice from that column "How to Keep Well" holds true. If you forget about your condition, will that make it better? That doesn't seem very sound, and it didn't work for the president. He had a very stressful job with many responsibilities, so no matter if he thought about it or not, I think he was doomed from the very beginning.