Presidential Disability and the Twenty-fifth Amendment

Abstract

To the Editor. —The descriptions of the risks to Americans of presidential ill health and a flawed process for succession reflect a bias. 1-4 Currently, 10 nations possess a nuclear weapons capability and the urge to acquire this technology appears irrepressible. In a world of emerging, quasi-, and many nondemocratic states, far more serious threats to US and international security are likely to arise from the cognitive impairment of leaders (and an ill-defined leadership succession) beyond US borders than at home. The current allegations of severe alcoholism directed at Russia's Yeltsin are a case in point, and the Gulf War demonstrated clearly that questionable mental status in a political leader without access to nuclear weapons can also threaten US interests and international stability. Perhaps one third of the world's countries possess sufficient conventional weaponry to destabilize entire regions 5 if power rests in the hands of a leader suffering from