The drug abuse of John F Kennedy

[emad]

Why did John F Kennedy make such a hash of the Bay of Pigs and his summit meeting with Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna?

And how could the same man have dealt so competently with the Cuban Missile Crisis slightly over a year later?

The usual theory is that Kennedy gained experience and a healthy scepticism for official advice. Now a new book offers an alternative explanation.

In his riveting volume In Sickness and In Power, former Foreign Secretary and medic David Owen reviews the health and medication of leaders over the last century. The chapter on Kennedy is jaw-dropping.
http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2008/04/the-drug-abuse.html

[seemslikeadream]

1. *****emad*****

[CountAllVotes]

2. you don't like anything Irish nor Catholic do you emad?

n/t

[emad]

8. A wild assumption. Nothing personal about this. Posted because

it's in the paper today and deals with a book on JFK. Doesn't mean I necessarily endorse the article just because I have read it.

[tomreedtoon]

3. How about Bush? Any word about him?

It's been noised around here quite a bit, but has anyone managed to nail him with specific observations of his behavior? Or is that waiting for Obama to take office? ('Cause you know any other winner of the White House will be employing Doctor Feelgood the Third.)

[gateley]

4. This isn't really news.

We've heard for years about the Dr. Feelgood shots.

I don't understand the reason for posting this..... :shrug:

[Donkeykick]

5. This looks like one...

of these sort of books where you might find some facts, while also finding just as much sensationalism too.

Take note from that article about the book--an excerpt.

Owen shows that is quite likely that Dr Feelgood, specially flown to Vienna, injected Kennedy with intravenous amphetamine just before he met Khrushchev.

Quite likely does not necessarily constitute fact.

[peacetalksforall]

6. THE CIA (and Mafia?) SCREWED KENNEDY BEFORE AND DURING THE BAY OF PIGS.

He inherited an Eisenhower and CIA/Mafia plan on behalf of the same type of land and resource grabbing people we know now. He learned who to trust.

Add whatever YOU want to add to the story with the help of conjecture in a review of a book with conjecture.

Methuen. Published by Methuen. What's their political slant lately? I really hope the book is more balanced than it appears to be. I don't really know about his diarrhea or abuses, but I believe his back injury pain was genuine.

[Matilda]

7. There's no doubt that many of the drugs he was given

for his many medical problems could, even singly, affect thinking and decision-making.

How much more extraordinary then is his record - he could run rings around any other U.S. leader
since, with the possible exception of Bill Clinton. The Bay of Pigs wasn't his - it was already
being hatched by the CIA when he became President, and he was never happy about it, but felt he had
to bow to the supposedly more experienced and wiser men advising him. And he did underestimate
Khruschev in Vienna, for whatever reason, but he never made that mistake again.

I'd rather have a Jack Kennedy making decisions affecting the world, drugs or not, than a supposedly
sober George Bush.

[Baby Snooks]

9. Dr. Feelgood

He was almost a "fad" with his "treatment" back in the 1960s and half of Hollywood also took the injections - many claimed they didn't know there were amphetamines in the injections and in fact Max Jacobson touted it as a vitamin shot. A vitamin shot with a little extra "vitamin."

[katty]

10. Jackie called Doc Feelgood's shots: "vitamins" - B12 shots

and other "stuff"