Members’ Lecture: An Address by The Rt. Hon. Lord Owen CH

13:00, 2 Sep 2008
RUSI, Whitehall, London, SW1A 2ET

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About the event:

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Lord Owen delivers a lecture detailing how some political leaders’ ill-conceived decisions are often connected to their own illnesses. Based on research from his latest book, ‘In Sickness and In Power’, Lord Owen focused on Sir Anthony Eden’s health during the Suez Crisis in 1956, and John F Kennedy’s struggle to control his medication for Addison’s disease during the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis a year later.

Lord Owen also presents his evidence suggesting that prior to the invasion of Iraq both George W Bush and Tony Blair engaged in a pattern of reckless behaviour, bad judgement and operational incompetence symptomatic of an environmentally induced psychiatric order he calls the ‘hubris syndrome’. He also touches on other leaders including Theodore Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, both of whom suffered with depression.

Lord Owen’s book ‘In Sickness and In Power: Illness in Heads of Government During the Last 100 Years’ was published in April 2008 by Methuen.

The Rt. Hon. Lord Owen CH was a Member of Parliament from 1966 to 1992; Navy Minister from 1968 to 1970; Health Minister in 1974; and Foreign Secretary from 1977 to 1979. He was Leader of the Social Democratic Party from 1983 to 1987 and from 1988 to 1990; and EU peace negotiator in the former Yugoslavia from 1992 to 1995.

Event manager: Sabrina Downey