cannabisnews.com: Book Says Nixon Took Mood-Altering Drug 





Book Says Nixon Took Mood-Altering Drug 
Posted by FoM on August 27, 2000 at 07:34:04 PT
By Adam Clymer
Source: New York Times
President Nixon medicated himself with a mood-altering prescription drug in the White House and, depressed by hostile public reaction to the bombing of Cambodia in 1970, he consulted a New York psychotherapist who considered him "neurotic," according to a biography to be published on Monday. Moreover, concern about Mr. Nixon's mental state in 1974 led the secretary of defense, James R. Schlesinger, to order all military units not to react to orders from "the White House" unless they were cleared with him or the secretary of state, writes Anthony Summers in "The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon." 
Mr. Schlesinger confirmed the account in an interview today, and said the book's description of events was the most complete and most accurate account of his actions, which had been reported in more general terms earlier. The book quotes him as saying, "I am proud of my role in protecting the integrity of the chain of command. You could say it was synonymous with protecting the Constitution." He confirmed today that that was how he felt. The book reports that the prescription drug, Dilantin, was given to Mr. Nixon in 1968 by Jack Dreyfus, the founder of the Dreyfus Fund and an enthusiastic promoter and user of the drug, after Mr. Dreyfus had dinner with Mr. Nixon and friends in Florida. Confirming the account, Mr. Dreyfus said in an interview this week that it is effective in dealing with "fear, worry, guilt, panic, anger and related emotions, irritability, rage, mood, depression, violent behavior, hyperglycemia, alcohol, anorexia, bulimia and binge eating, cardiac arrhythmia, muscular disorders." Mr. Dreyfus said in the interview that he gave Mr. Nixon a bottle of one-thousand, 100 milligram capsules, "when his mood wasn't too good." He said Mr. Nixon scoffed when he said they should be prescribed by a doctor, and he later gave the president another 1,000 capsules. In the book, Mr. Dreyfus says Mr. Nixon told him: "To heck with the doctor." Dr. Richard A. Friedman, director of the psychopharmacology clinic at Cornell medical school, said in an interview Thursday that Dilantin was properly used to prevent convulsions, and was discredited for psychiatric use. He said it could be used to prevent anxiety, but other drugs were better. He said Dilantin has "potentially very serious side effect risks, like change of mental status, person becoming confused, loss of memory, irritability, definitely could have an effect on cognitive function." Mr. Nixon's pre-presidency treatments by Dr. Arnold A. Hutschnecker have been reported. But the White House and Nixon allies steadfastly denied that Mr. Nixon was treated once he became president. Robbyn Swan, Mr. Summers' wife and collaborator, said in a telephone interview that she had interviewed Dr. Hutschnecker in 1995 and 1997, and that he had indicated that while he had seen Mr. Nixon rarely while he was president, they maintained contact, apparently by telephone. Speaking from their home near Waterford, Ireland, she played a tape recording of part of an interview with Dr. Hutschnecker, in which he said of Mr. Nixon: "He didn't have a serious psychiatric diagnosis. He wasn't psychotic. He had no pathology, but he had a good portion of neurotic symptoms: anxiety" and sleeplessness. Dr. Hutschnecker, who is 102 and living in Sherman, Conn., declined to be interviewed today. Juan Gonzales, who was caring for Dr. Hutschnecker, said the doctor would not give any more interviews and "could hardly speak." Ms. Swan said that when she last saw the doctor a few months ago, he was in a wheelchair and did not speak, although he agreed to be photographed for a television documentary by the History Channel and the BBC. "The Arrogance of Power," which Viking will publish and is planning to sell for $29.95, is generally hostile in its treatment of Mr. Nixon. It restates, with much new detail, the accusation that Mr. Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign sought to persuade South Vietnam's President Nguyen Van Thieu not to agree to President Lyndon Johnson's pleas that he agree to join peace talks in Paris with the United States, North Vietnam and the Viet Cong. In particular, Mr. Summers, an Irish journalist, cites a document the Federal Bureau of Investigation released to him, recording a wiretap of South Vietnam's ambassador to Washington, Bui Diem. It reported that "Mrs. Anna Chennault contacted Vietnamese ambassador, Bui Diem, and advised that she had received a message from her boss (not further identified), which her boss wanted her to give personally to the ambassador. She said that message was that the ambassador is to 'hold on, we are gonna win' and that her boss also said 'hold on, he understands all of it.' She repeated that this is the only message 'he said please tell your boss to hold on.' She advised that her boss had just called from New Mexico." On that day, Nov. 2, 1968, Gov, Spiro T. Agnew, the vice-presidential candidate, was in Albuquerque. Mr. Summers, citing declassified White House documents, suggests that Mr. Agnew himself telephoned Mrs. Chennault, a well-connected Washington hostess and the widow of Claire Lee Chennault, commander of the Flying Tigers in China. He concludes "Nixon's running mate acted for no one but Nixon." He also reports that Mrs. Chennault told the ambassador's secretary after the election that she had talked to Mr. Nixon about her role. The most provocative charge in the book is that Mr. Nixon beat his wife, Pat. Here the author relies on second-hand accounts. He writes of various journalists being told of beatings. His most specific account comes from John P. Sears, an aide to Nixon in the 1968 campaign and early in his administration, describing an event that may have happened just after Mr. Nixon's 1962 defeat for governor of California. The book quotes Mr. Sears as saying a Nixon family lawyer, Waller Taylor, "told me that Nixon had hit her in 1962 and that she threatened to leave him over it. . . . I'm not talking about a smack. . . . He blackened her eye. . . . I had heard about that from Pat Hillings as well as from the family lawyer." Mr. Sears, a retired lawyer in Washington, confirmed today that he had told Mr. Summers about Mr. Taylor and Mr. Hillings. Mr. Taylor and Mr. Hillings, a longtime Nixon associate, are both dead. Julie Nixon Eisenhower, advised of the accusation, asked John Taylor, director of the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, Calif., to respond on her behalf. He said: "It cannot possibly be true. It is utterly inconceivable. Anyone who knows and worked with President Nixon knows first of all that he could not have done it, second of all that he would not have done it, and third of all that had he done it, there are innumerable people who would not have spoken to him and yet remained active in his life and in Mrs. Nixon's life until their deaths and beyond." He added that "Mrs. Eisenhower this afternoon confirmed that she and Tricia and her mother were at home watching television and that later that day Mr. Nixon came home and they spent the evening together." And he said that Waller Taylor was not the Nixon family lawyer but "happened to occupy the same law firm office as former Vice President Nixon." Ms. Swan said Dr. Hutschnecker told her he felt comfortable describing his consultations with Mr. Nixon because he had once told the president he wanted to write about it, and Mr. Nixon had replied, "only when I am six feet under." Mr. Nixon died in 1994. When Mr. Nixon left the White House after resigning in 1974, a letter from Dr. Hutschnecker was found in his desk. The letter, sent at the height of the Watergate disclosures on July 3, 1973, said, "Once doubts have been planted in the minds of people, neither legal, political or PR-defense regardless of how well presented, can fully wipe out all the doubts." The next day in an Op-Ed article in The New York Times, the doctor wrote "both a clinical as well as a psychoanalytically oriented physician should take part in the policy-making of our federal or local governments." He said they would be able to "raise their voice when human ambition and greed or drives for an uninhibited use of power seem to be getting out of control." Published: August 27, 2000Source: New York Times (NY)Copyright: 2000 The New York Times CompanyContact: letters nytimes.comAddress: 229 West 43rd Street, New York, NY 10036Fax: (212) 556-3622Website: http://www.nytimes.com/Forum: http://www10.nytimes.com/comment/CannabisNews Justice Archives:http://cannabisnews.com/news/list/justice.shtml
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Comment #3 posted by FoM on August 27, 2000 at 11:03:19 PT
I got that Kapt!
Dilantin too! That was a drug that a person I knew who was a heroin addict said was the drug to shoot if you couldn't get heroin. That drug was never available to anyone like me. That's how controlled it was years ago. Generic name: Phenytoin (fen e toe in)Brand name: Dilantin (di lan tin)Other names: Diphenylan sodium, diphenylhydantoin, DPH, PHThttp://www-nmcp.med.navy.mil/dms/0504/0504L/dilantin.htm
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Comment #2 posted by kaptinemo on August 27, 2000 at 10:39:42 PT:
Arrogance of Power, indeed
Did any of you get the fact that a non-physician was in effect 'prescribing' a controlled substance...and was not arrested for breaking the laws involved in doing so? Had you or I done so, the DEA - Nixon's brainchild, no less - would have descended upon us with all their fury. But the Prez's best buddy is handing out bottles full of tabs. And the DEA looks the other way.One more instance of "do as I say, not as I do". Any wonder where Klinton got the idea?
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Comment #1 posted by MikeEEEEE on August 27, 2000 at 08:11:14 PT
Policy Makers
The doctor makes a good point in the following paragraph.The next day in an Op-Ed article in The New York Times, the doctor wrote "both a clinical as well as a psychoanalytically oriented physician should take part in the policy-making of our federal or local governments." He said they would be able to "raise their voice when human ambition and greed or drives for an uninhibited use of power seem to be getting out of control."I'm thinking, what if a doctor was around when Clinton decided about Monica or to start the drug war in Columbia? I'm sure the both outcomes would be very different.
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