Illness and Decision

Illness and medication can impair judgment.

Franklin Roosevelt was dying when he met Stalin at Yalta.  Historians disagree as to whether his dire medical condition affected his ability to negotiate.  

Woodrow Wilson was another ailing president.

 Robin Wright (the journalist, not the star of House of Cards),  writes at The New Yorker:

Roosevelt was not the only President with ailments that had an enduring impact on the world. In April, 1919, Woodrow Wilson caught the Spanish flu while in Paris negotiating terms to end the First World War. His temperature soared; he had difficulty breathing; he had wild hallucinations; even as he got better, he often seemed disoriented. Wilson’s illness almost unravelled the six-month peace talks. His positions also changed after he returned to the negotiating table. Wilson had initially argued against exacting too high a price from Germany and for allowing self-determination in a postwar republic. The French wanted huge reparations for the war and military buffer zones established with Germany. After his illness, Wilson ceded many of his positions. The final Treaty of Versailles was so harsh that it fuelled the angry German nationalism that led to the rise of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis—and the Second World War. Wilson came home from Paris to campaign for the League of Nations as it was being heatedly debated in Congress. He was still weakened from the flu’s aftermath. In September, 1919, during a whistle-stop tour, by train, he suffered a massive stroke. Wilson’s health was, again, kept from the public. His wife, Edith, secretly became the de-facto President. Wilson was largely incapacitated, and paralyzed on his left side, until his term ended, in 1921. Congress rejected the League of Nations. The initiative to create the first global institution to promote peace collapsed.

In the nuclear age, every president has had an unchecked power to wipe out all life on earth. More here.