US President Donald Trump has made limited public appearances in the past week.
Photo: AL DRAGO
Analysis – Speculation over Donald Trump’s health went viral on social media over the weekend. There has not been any confirmed illness in the US President – but there is a lengthy history of American presidential health cover-ups.
At 79 years old, Trump is the second-oldest president in US history, and recently pictures of him with swollen legs and bruising on his hands have raised concerns.
There has been no announcement that Trump is seriously ill. He was examined for swelling in his legs in July and has been diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency.
“There was no evidence of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) or arterial disease”, and Trump’s lab testing was all “within normal limits,” his doctor wrote in a letter. “No signs of heart failure, renal impairment, or systemic illness were identified.”
“NEVER FELT BETTER IN MY LIFE!” Trump replied on his Truth Social network this weekend to a poster about claims about his health.
However, that hasn’t stopped wild rumours from simmering online, as they do.
Norman Kirk died at just 51 years old.
Photo: Peter Bush
It also doesn’t help that unlike New Zealand, US history is littered with examples of its leaders who have concealed aspects of their health from the public.
In New Zealand, only five prime ministers or premiers have died in office – John Ballance (1893), Richard Seddon (1906), William Massey (1925), Michael Joseph Savage (1940) and Norman Kirk (1974).
Kirk, who died at only 51 years old, was the only prime minister to die in office in the mass media age. He suffered from rapidly deteriorating health in his final years, including heart disease, diabetes and surgery for painful varicose veins.
David Grant’s biography The Mighty Totara recounts Kirk having a major heart attack while visiting India, and his comments to friends that he “wouldn’t make old bones”.
Yet the true extent of Kirk’s health was still somewhat obscure to the public, as Kirk himself wanted to keep working and was frustrated by his tragic decline. His death from a pulmonary embolism came as a shock – “Time stood still for a moment,” Grant writes. Thousands mourned him.
In America, major illnesses and even highly risky surgery among presidents have often been hidden from the public.
Joe Biden became America’s oldest serving president, leaving office at age 82.
Photo: JIM WATSON / AFP
America and its aging presidents
Former President Joe Biden abandoned his re-election campaign last year after a dismal debate performance which raised concerns about his physical and mental stamina. Biden, who was 82 when he left office, has since been diagnosed with prostate cancer.
There has been considerable debate over whether Biden’s decline over his presidency was covered up, including best-selling books questioning the true state of his health.
Trump, less than four years younger than Biden, has frequently attacked Biden’s health – but he actually became the oldest president inaugurated when he started his second term at age 78 earlier this year. He is now set to be the oldest president in office himself if he is still there when his term ends in 2029, when he will be age 82.
The average age of US presidents at death is around 72 years old, but that has been rising in recent years, with Presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush all making it well into their nineties, and Jimmy Carter setting a presidential record by celebrating his 100th birthday before his death late last year.
Reagan announced he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 1994, five years after he left office at age 77 in early 1989. As the then-oldest president in American history there were vocal concerns about his memory and health that grew throughout his two terms in office.
Some of the historical examples of hidden health issues are particularly startling and would be hard to cover up in today’s perpetually online world.
The president who had top secret surgery on a boat in the middle of the night
US President Grover Cleveland.
Photo: Photo12 via AFP
The main reason anyone remembers President Grover Cleveland today is that until Trump, he was the only president to serve non-consecutive terms.
He also went through one of the more startling episodes in American history – a late-night top secret surgery on the yacht Oneida to remove a tumour. His entire upper left jaw and part of his soft palate were removed.
In his fascinating book on the cover-up, The President Is A Sick Man, Matthew Algeo writes that when a reporter found out about the surgery, Cleveland flatly denied it with his people saying he was being treated for “rheumatism,” and the reporter “was dismissed as a disgrace to journalism”.
Given it was 1893 and such surgery was risky even when not performed on a boat at sea, the president could easily have died. His speech or vision could have been forever disfigured. As it is, the president wore a prosthesis in his jaw and his trademark moustache concealed most of the scarring.
“No one would ever know what really happened on the Oneida,” Algeo writes.
Years after Cleveland’s death, his doctor actually admitted what had happened.
Franklin D. Roosevelt with Fala his dog and Ruthie Bie in Hyde Park, New York, 1941. There were few images taken showing President Roosevelt in his wheelchair.
Photo: Photo12 via AFP
The president who was in a wheelchair
America’s longest serving president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, was elected four times and saw the country through World War II and the Great Depression. He was also partially paralysed from the waist down after a bout with polio when he was 39 years old.
While his disability was not completely hidden, Roosevelt was rarely photographed in his wheelchair or with the leg braces that he sometimes used to get around. He forged a gentleman’s agreement with the media to not publicise the extent of his condition.
After his death, his use of a wheelchair became much more widely known.
Woodrow Wilson, centre, in 1918 before his crippling stroke in 1919.
Photo: Photo12 via AFP
The president who could barely serve in office
Woodrow Wilson had a massive stroke in October 1919, and historians now generally recognise that he was dangerously incapacitated for the final year and a half of his term and unable to fulfil the duties of his office.
Vice President Thomas Marshall was never named as acting president. Instead, somewhat controversially, First Lady Edith Wilson took up much of the role in what she called a “stewardship” of the ailing president. Some have said she was actually the first woman president.
She wrote in her memoirs, “I studied every paper, sent from the different Secretaries or Senators, and tried to digest and present in tabloid form the things that, despite my vigilance, had to go to the President. I, myself, never made a single decision regarding the disposition of public affairs.”
As Wilson refused to step aside or relinquish power, it left the country in a nebulous zone. This all happened before a 1967 amendment to the US Constitution laid out more specifically what should happen if the president is incapacitated.
John F. Kennedy suffered from poor health.
Photo: Ann Ronan Picture Library / Photo12 via AFP
The president whose health woes were far worse than the public knew
John F. Kennedy was the youngest president to die, assassinated at just age 46. He projected an image of youth and vigour but in reality suffered from lifelong health issues.
He had chronic back pain, exacerbated by injuries when he was shot down in the Pacific Ocean during World War II and swam long distances to rescue his fellow crewmen. He underwent multiple dangerous back surgeries.
Kennedy also suffered from Addison’s disease, a insufficiency of the adrenal glands that can be fatal if left untreated. Much of this was artfully concealed from the public.
Kennedy lied to a journalist about his Addison’s disease while running for office, saying “No one who has the real Addison’s disease should run for the presidency, but I do not have it.”
Kennedy took multiple painkillers and medications up until the day he died.
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