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

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

Link to map: multimap

About the event:

Members’ Lecture

The Effect of Illness on the Decisions of Heads of Government in Times of War

Tuesday 2 September 2008

1300-1400

Royal United Services Institute, Whitehall, London

Lord Owen will deliver 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 will focus 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 will also present 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 will also touch on other leaders including Theodore Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, both of whom suffered with depression.

This is a RUSI member’s only event.

An optional £6 sandwich lunch shall be available from 1215.

To register for this event, please email Sabrina Downey, Event Manager at sabrinad@rusi.org or +44 (0)20 7747 2622.

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. Copies of this book can be purchased after the lecture at a special price of £20 and will be signed by Lord Owen.

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. 

www.rusi.org/events

Event manager: Sabrina Downey