IKE’S HEALTH: HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

During his presidency, Eisenhower had several reoccurring health episodes, with the two most serious being his gastrointestinal problems and heart disease. There remains disagreement among scholars as to the number of heart attacks President Eisenhower had throughout his life. Some say as little as two, while others say as many as seven but, it was Eisenhower’s episodes of gastrointestinal problems which seemed to come about without any apparent cause, resulting in sever stomach cramps, that plagued him throughout most of his adult life.

In his book titled Eisenhower’s Heart Attack, Clarence G. Lasby explains that it was not until a medical examination was conducted that Eisenhower finally learned what was causing all of his stomach cramps and gastrointestinal problems dating back to the 1920’s. As Lasby notes:

The president had chronic ileitis, an inflammation of the lowest potion the small intestine, also known as Crohn’s disease after Dr. Burrill B. Crohn, who first described it in 1932. It was a little-known disease, considered mild rather than severe, and it primarily affected the young. It usually had a slow onset, but once established its symptoms tended to recur over months or years nearly always ending in surgery.

Lasby goes on to further explain why the President’s medical team, even after learning that Eisenhower was inflicted with this little-known disease, decided against taken any surgical measure to alleviate this problem, stating:

Since the president was free of any active symptoms, the diagnosis did not pose any immediate medical problem. The doctors found no indication of a need for surgery and were content to rely on continued observation and possible dietary changes.

Noteworthy is the fact that, despite his Crohn’s disease, heart problems, and heavy smoking Eisenhower enjoyed a long life, living to be almost eighty years old.

On March 21, 1949, Eisenhower had another one of his health episodes and fell ill. According to an entry in Eisenhower’s diary dated June 4, 1949, it was during this latest medical ordeal that then-president, Harry S. Truman, invited the General to stay at the “Truman Little White House” at the Naval Station in Key West, Florida. This would be Eisenhower’s first visit to the presidential retreat in the Florida Keys. President Truman reasoned that Eisenhower needed rest and recuperation. In his diary entry, Eisenhower recorded:

While in Washington, I had a severe digestive upset this spring, which finally put me to bed on March 21. By the end of a week I was fit to travel and President Truman invited me to use his residential facilities at Key West. I went down there with General Snyder and remained until April 12. On that date he took me to Augusta National Golf Club where I remained until May 12.

This gesture of friendship by President Truman for Eisenhower to use the presidential retreat in Key West was genuine and demonstrates that the Truman-Eisenhower relationship as still on good terms during this time. The positive nature of their relationship is also reflected in an April 9, 1949 letter written by Truman to Eisenhower in response to Eisenhower thanking him for the use of the Little White House in which he writes:

Dear Ike:
I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your note of April sixth and I am just as happy as I can be that you are progressing to full physical recovery. I hope you will stay as long as it is necessary to accomplish that purpose.
I am also happy that my prescription is having the desired affect.
Take good care of yourself and stay as long as you want to.
Sincerely yours,
Harry Truman

The cause of Eisenhower’s sudden illness on March 21, 1949 that precipitated his visit to the presidential retreat in Key West remains unresolved and has been the subject of much continual debate. Some have suggested that Eisenhower suffered a mild heart attack, while others believe that his illness was another example of his long struggle with gastrointestinal problems or Crohn’s disease. Much of this debate has arisen over the difference of opinion between two of Eisenhower’s doctors, Colonel Mattingly and General Howard Snyder.

On the one side there was Dr. Mattingly, Eisenhower’s Army cardiologist who had served the President as a consultant during the early 1950s and during Ike’s 1955 heart attack. Mattingly believed the cause of Eisenhower’s sudden illness in 1949 to be a mild heart-attack. Although he was not present during Eisenhower’s sudden illness in 1949, Dr. Mattingly concluded that the President did in fact experience a mild heart attack but that the attending doctor, Dr. Snyder, offered a “deceptive diagnosis” as part of a cover up. In the book Eisenhower’s Heart Attack, the author supports that Dr. Mattingly’s belief in a possible cover up concerning Ike’s 1949 illness, writing:

…both Eisenhower and Snyder were purposefully withholding the occurrence of this illness from the public and from the consulting cardiologists. Snyder, he charged, “definitely belonged to the old school of physicians” like Vice Admiral Ross McIntyre (who for twelve years had hidden the ailments of Franklin Roosevelt) and was more interested in protecting the “political life” of Eisenhower than he was providing the truth to the public. Mattingly liked and respected Eisenhower, but he believed he had “sanctioned and collaborated in the deception. “As an ambitious army officer,” the cardiologist deduced, “he, like many others with aspirations of becoming high-ranking officers and leaders, made special effort to keep his records free of any disease or physical abnormalities which might interfere with subsequent promotions and assignments.”

Dr. Mattingly’s analysis of the exact nature and cause of Eisenhower’s illness in 1949 stands in stark contrast to Dr. Snyder’s diagnosis at the actual time he was treating Eisenhower for this illness.

On the other side of this debate is Dr. Snyder who believed that the culprit was Eisenhower’s long history of gastrointestinal problems. General Snyder had been Ike’s personal and presidential physician after WWII and was therefore present during the 1949 health crisis. Snyder describes the conditions associated with Eisenhower’s gastrointestinal problems and makes mention of the 1949 health incident in a memorandum in which he states:

General Eisenhower is subject to recurrent attacks of abdominal distension with colic, at times mild, occasionally severe. The exact cause has not been determined. There is a history of dysentery covering a period of years; no bacillary or amoebic cause was ever demonstrated. Diligent search has been renewed for any bacterial or parasitic cause upon several occasions during the past few years with negative results.

General Eisenhower’s GI tract reacts to any nervous upset with an immediate explosive evacuation of the intestines, or a more serious combination of manifestations. The General, due to a very painful and prostrating attack of colic and abdominal distention in March, 1949, and several moderately painful attacks at other times, now becomes alarmed and apprehensive at first indication of abdominal distention and cramps. These attacks usually develop after a period of nervously exhausting work, and have been precipitated by eating a highly spice…meal.

Although Dr. Mattingly and Dr. Snyder both seem to make a compelling argument as to the true nature of Eisenhower’s 1949 illness, one must take seriously Dr. Snyder’s diagnosis for the mere fact that Dr. Snyder was not only there for the 1949 episode but, also for the previous gastrointestinal episodes that Eisenhower had experienced. Therefore, Snyder was quite familiar with Eisenhower’s symptoms and health. Also, it was not until some time after this episode that Eisenhower and Dr. Snyder finally found that it was the little-known Crohn’s disease * that had been causing Ike’s gastrointestinal problems for so many years. Either way, it was Eisenhower’s heart problems that led him to his stay in Key West a second time in 1955.

On September 25, 1955 while in Denver, President Eisenhower suffered a mild heart attack. At 2:45a.m., the President complained that he had a pain in his chest and, after listening to the President’s heart at 3:11 a.m., Dr. Snyder determined that Eisenhower had experienced an injury to his heart. Evidence for this event and diagnosis exists in a memorandum made at Eisenhower’s bedside on September 24, 1955. On the morning of September 25, 1955, the President was removed from the Doud residence to Fitzsimons Hospital, staying there for almost seven weeks until November 11.

eisenhowerinstitute.org/commentary/WatsonHealthIkeArticle.htm  Fair use

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