Presidential health cover-ups are as American as apple pie

The Hill

2 days ago

That rumbling noise coming out of Washington is the sound of other shoes dropping in the saga of the Amazing Shrinking Biden Presidency with the release of 'Original Sin' — the latest in what will likely be a series of behind-the-scenes tell-alls about the former president's cognitive and physical decline in office and the high-level efforts to cover it up.
Adding fuel to the fire are interviews with former aides, party operatives and financial donors who now find it politically safe to say that in meeting Biden they were shocked — shocked! — by his sad condition. Even his ever-cautious Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who regularly dismissed questions about Biden's mental capacity, now concedes that 'maybe' it wasn't a good idea for him to run for reelection.
But the sad fact is that presidential medical cover-ups are almost as old as the republic. Many of American leaders have suffered potentially crippling health problems that could have incapacitated them in a crisis. To one extent or another, they were kept from the public.
Abraham Lincoln fell into black moods that today would be diagnosed as depression. Ulysses S. Grant struggled with alcoholism. Under the pretext of a fishing trip, Grover Cleveland was secretly operated on for cancer of the jaw while cruising on a friend's yacht. Warren G. Harding entered the White House with the serious heart condition that killed him mid-term.
Dwight Eisenhower also had cardiac problems and suffered several heart attacks in office and a stroke, which his aides downplayed despite his slurred speech. Polio confined Franklin D. Roosevelt to a wheelchair that journalists were barred from photographing with him in it. Despite serious deterioration of his health, Roosevelt ran for and was elected to an unprecedented fourth term, then suffered an apparent stroke in 1945 before attending the crucial Yalta Conference to set plans for the end of World War II. Another stroke killed him later that year.
John F. Kennedy suffered debilitating Addison's Disease and also received strong painkillers for an old back injury. Ronald Reagan's advancing Alzheimer's is widely seen as contributing to the Iran-Contra scandal.
Most analogous to the Biden cover-up is the stroke that paralyzed and incapacitated Woodrow Wilson. He was treated more or less in secret and seen only by an aide, his doctors and wife. To continue the charade, Edith Wilson acted as the de facto president for more than a year, issuing policy statements and executive decisions in his name and forging his signature on bills passed by Congress. Lawmakers, his Cabinet and the public were kept in the dark.
Nikki Haley addressed a core concern in this as a Republican primary hopeful early last year, calling for mandatory 'mental competency tests' for politicians older than 75. 'This is especially important for senior officials making decisions that can impact public safety and well-being,' she said.
The plan was dismissed as an attack on a doddering Biden, but it's a good idea. If conducted in an independent manner, such tests would go far to address public concerns that inevitably will follow revelations of Biden's closely guarded deteriorating condition.
But it shouldn't stop there. Given the record of the potentially crippling health problems American presidents have suffered, full medical reports should be required as well. Many but not all candidates now release the findings of physical checkups conducted by their own physicians, and the reports are invariably sunny. Biden's 2024 checkup noted only some acid reflux and a problem with sleep apnea, making no mention of the prostate cancer he recently disclosed.
One way to do this would be to condition the receipt of federal campaign matching funds on presidential and vice presidential candidates submitting their comprehensive medical information to an independent, apolitical group that would share conditions that raise alarm with the public.
Candidates for the presidency should expect to surrender some personal privacy. Given the high stakes, their potentially debilitating health problems should be disclosed sooner, rather than when it's too late.
Winston Wood was Washington news editor of the Wall Street Journal and explained U.S. foreign policy to audiences overseas on Voice of America.