Checks On World Leaders’ Mental Health Suggested

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32303, 22 May 1970, Page 18

Checks On World Leaders ’ Mental Health Suggested

• (N.ZP. A. -Reuter—Copyright) PARIS. World leaders should I prove their soundness of mind before making major decisions or standing for elections, a group of French psychiatrists has suggested.

Writing tn Le Concours Medical —a magazine for doctors the psychiatrists suggested that the problems of war and peace between I nations were too important [to be entrusted to men who [could easily be suffering from neuroses binding them [to certain destructive attitudes. Some world organisations like the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation and the Food and Agriculture Organisation already take the advice cf psychiatrists on major problems of society. The United 'States Department also has psycho--analysts on its staff to study the personalities of negotiators, but the sanity of their leaders remains relatively unquestioned by the public at large, the magazine said.

Mr Otto Klineberg. one of the nine psychiatrists interviewed, said: “In the United States, President Dwight Eisenhower had to produce a

certificate of good physical health to reassure the electorate during his election campaign, but he did not think of producing a certificate of sound mental health —undoubtedly because the public demand was not made clearly and forcefully enough.” Mr Herbert Marcovich, another psychiatrist, said: “The fact of attaining responsibility in an unusual sphere implies perhaps something abnormal with these men—not a serious personality defect or specific mental illness, but a mental state which enables them to ordain,

by a simple decision, the condition, and sometimes the life, of millions of human beings." But Mr Cyrllly Koupernik thinks that individuals in power do not have much effect on international rela-

tions. “Hitler’s madness coincided in time with a collective phenomenon infinitely more important than himself," he said.

“To get politicians to seek psychiatric care today would undoubtedly require

! important changes in the - outlook of the people who I [are in power,” Mr Claude I j Veil said. II Mr Marcovich pointed out

that war, which has always existed between nations, could not be termed sick behaviour, although “if individuals behaved like nations they would certainly be considered seriously deranged.” Psychology could remove the “emotional" element in 'decisions made by world [leaders which affect millions of people, he added. : He suggested that psychologists could also cols [ lect information about' the irrational and emotional aspects of those who opposed a leader when he made a major decision.

The general consensus among the specialists was that psychologists should concentrate on developing techniques of analysis and suggesting methods of curing social ills. Mr Koupernik remarked,

however, that judging by the small headway that psychoanalysis had made in criminology, it had a long way to go before making

solid contributions to the problems of war and peace among nations.