Suffering In Secrecy

By Amy Wilentz

As the 75-ton yacht Oneida sailed up New York City's East River in early July 1893, almost no one in the country was aware that on board, President Grover Cleveland lay unconscious under general anesthetic. Cleveland's life and possibly, the future of the nation rested that day in the hands of a few surgeons. Even his pretty young wife Frances had not been informed of the President's illness.

When told he would have to undergo surgery for a cancer of the mouth, Cleveland, the 24th President of the U.S., insisted on secrecy. It was he who thought up the idea of the sailing hospital, but rumors of the President's operation eventually leaked out. Said one attending physician: "I did more lying during this period than in all the rest of my life put together." Still, it was 20 years before the full story of the procedure emerged, although surgeons had discovered a malignant cancer and removed much of Cleveland's gums, inner cheek and upper jaw (an artificial rubber jaw replaced the bone).

Methods for dealing publicly with presidential illnesses have changed substantially since then. Bulletins are issued, news conferences are held, and sometimes plans are made for a temporary transfer of power. In 1966, when Lyndon Johnson went to the Bethesda National Naval Hospital for repair of an abdominal hernia, he summoned reporters to his bedside three hours after he left surgery to let them know he was very much in control. Under an informal agreement with Johnson, Vice President Hubert Humphrey had been given permission to exercise the power of the Chief Executive if the President was unable to do so.

In the earlier days of the Republic, however, Presidents and their entourages sometimes felt that their own programs, if not the national security itself, would be vulnerable if a grave illness were admitted. As John B. Moses and Wilbur Cross relate in the book Presidential Courage (W.W. Norton Co., 1980), many Presidents suffered, usually in silence and secrecy, from chronic and painful diseases. George Washington had a giant benign tumor in his leg and was the victim of rheumatism and repeated pneumonia. Andrew Jackson, famous for his stamina and courage, was described in a contemporary article in the Boston Medical School Journal as "a tottering scarecrow in deadly agony," a man in whom "the malaria, the dysentery, the osteomyelitis and the bronchiectasis were going on, and on, and on." But Jackson continued to lead the nation with authority.

Not so Woodrow Wilson. In 1919, during a whistle-stop tour of the nation, the 28th President was struck down near Pueblo, Colo., by an embolism that left him half paralyzed and with slurred speech. Back in Washington he recovered, only to suffer a second and irreversible stroke. During the final 17 months of his second term, the U.S. was shakily ruled by a triumvirate consisting of Wilson's second wife Edith, his White House secretary, Joe Tumulty, and his doctor, Cary Grayson. Cabinet meetings petered out slowly. The first one, held in almost complete, shocked silence, as Wilson's mind wandered, came six months after the stroke. During the course of these meetings, Edith was always close by, and Wilson's attending physician would pop in every few minutes to check on his patient.

Wilson's condition was carefully kept from the public. He was never hospitalized, and Edith kept watch over his door, barring all but the most necessary visits. Goaded by Republican Senator George Higgins Moses of New Hampshire, Congress established a committee to investigate the Democratic President's health. In December 1919, Edith allowed the group to see her husband in his bedroom, where he was propped up in a chair, a shawl covering his palsied hand. The committee spoke with him for 15 minutes, the extent of his attention span, and then was ushered out by Mrs. Wilson. The President and his entourage were never again called to account. Deaf, almost blind and immobile, Wilson lived three years beyond his final term.

During his last months in office, Franklin D. Roosevelt was obviously ailing, his formerly jaunty face wan and his eyes sunk deep into their sockets. Though laid low by symptoms that foreshadowed thrombosis, F.D.R. did not relinquish the presidency or its powers. Four months into his fourth term, he died of a stroke.

Dwight Eisenhower was always the picture of health, pink-cheeked, full-faced and bright-eyed. But during his first term, he suffered a heart attack, first described as a "digestive upset," that left Vice President Richard M. Nixon temporarily but not formally in charge. It was the first time that such control was openly, even if unofficially, transferred to a constitutionally designated successor. It was during Eisenhower's convalescence at Fitz-simons Army Medical Center near Denver, where he became ill, that the tradition of issuing bulletins on the President's health was established.

Ike's troubles were not over. Six months after his return to Washington, he was struck down by ileitis, a painful and dangerous inflammation of the lower portion of the small intestine. He overwhelmingly won re-election despite his ailments, but ten months into his second term, he suffered a small stroke that caused panic on Wall Street. The stock market dropped almost $4.5 billion in half an hour. The next day, in the midst of an emergency conference with the Cabinet and aides called by Nixon, Eisenhower shuffled in unexpectedly, then suddenly turned on his heel. Heading back to bed, he said, "If I cannot attend to my duties, I am simply going to give up this job." About a week later, he was completely recovered and took the reins of Government back from his Vice President. --By Amy Wilentz