Reply #24: Flawed Giant

[H2O Man]

by Robert Dallek
page 627

"Plaguing Johnson as well was an irrational conviction that his domestic opponents were subversive or the dupes of subversives intent on undermining national institutions. Johnson's paranoia raises questions about his judgement and capacity to make rational life and death decisions. I do not raise this matter casually. It is a frightening difficult issue, which the country has never seriously addressed. ... Determining psychological incapacity may be impossible. We have never had a President who was so demonstrably depressed or unstable that he had to temporarily or permanently give up governing. ..."

Odd that LBJ and Nixon both were believed by those close to them as having, to some degree, emotional breakdowns that impaired their ability to govern.