What Killed Jane Austen?: And Other Medical Mysteries (11 page)

Moran wrote: ‘ … he was not doing his work. He did not want to be bothered by anything; he was living in the past …’

But not once did Moran encourage Churchill to resign. Just the opposite:

Winston … once asked me whether he ought to have retired earlier … I was, I think, alone in urging him to hang on, though I knew that he was hardly up to his job for at least a year before he resigned office. His family and friends pressed him to retire; they feared that he might do something which would injure his reputation. I held that this was none of my business. I knew that he would feel that life was over when he resigned … It was my job as his doctor to postpone that day as long as I could.

In 1953, after an official dinner, Churchill had another stroke. This one affected his left side: he could neither speak nor leave the table. Again, officials hushed it up.

The neurologist Sir Russell Brain doubted whether Churchill would live another year, and agreed with Moran’s view that immediate retirement might hasten death. A cardiologist was emphatic that Churchill could not act as Prime Minister.

But somehow, the wilful, wily old man defied such opinions, and carried on the pretence: instead of dealing with matters of state, Churchill read novels and played cards.

He himself once conceded that a prime minister could get to be past it, and should be removed, as Adam Sykes and Ian Sproat record in
The Wit of Sir Winston
: ‘The office of Prime Minister is unique. If he trips he must be sustained; if he makes mistakes, they must be covered; if he sleeps he must not be wantonly disturbed; if he is no good he must be pole-axed.’

But there was no one strong enough to pole-axe Churchill.

In late 1954, he had to apologise after misleading the Commons (and jeopardising the government’s foreign policy) about a telegram he claimed to have sent to Field-Marshal Montgomery during the war.

There was no such telegram; by now even the Conservatives had had enough. But it was April 1955 before the Prime Minister finally stepped down.

By then, he was spending most of his days in bed; his last years must have distressed those who had known him in better days. In January 1965, aged 90, Churchill died.

Details of Churchill’s poor health did not reach the public until 1966, when Moran published his book
Winston Churchill: The Struggle For Survival
. Uproar! Churchill’s family and many colleagues were indignant that Moran had revealed personal medical details.

But there is another issue, more important than that of confidentiality. Despite repeated evidence of Churchill’s serious ill-health during the war, he did not resign as prime minister until 10 years after the war ended.

As Churchill’s personal doctor, should not Moran have balanced his duty to his patient against the interests of his country? Could he have induced Churchill to step down earlier? Could anyone else have done so?

If we make pilots and bus drivers pass medical examinations, why don’t we do the same for politicians?

(GB)

Josef Vissarionovich Djugashvili was born in Georgia, Russia, in 1879. If he had retained that name he may well have lived and died a peasant. But he didn’t, for in 1912, when he was invited by Lenin to join the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, he changed it to the Russian for ‘man of steel’—Josef Stalin. It suited him well. Stalin was born into abject poverty, the son of a drunken, abusive father. As a child he endured a severe attack of smallpox which left his face permanently scarred. It was so disfigured that when he came to power, thousands of photographs had to be doctored to disguise the lesions.

At the age of 10 his left arm was injured, possibly as a result of being thrashed by his father. Osteomyelitis (inflammation of the bone) followed, and poor treatment led to a ‘Volkmann’s contracture’ where the hand would not open fully and muscle control was lost. There also a permanent shortening of his left arm by about 7.5 centimetres. He often wore a glove, allegedly for rheumatism, but probably to conceal the defect in his hand. At times he also wore a brace on the arm, as can be seen in some unguarded photographed moments.

Despite these defects, Stalin was physically very strong as illustrated by the story that late in life he swung the beefy Marshall Tito off his feet in a bear hug.

But his violent upbringing had its effect, for as the years rolled by Stalin grew mentally unstable and more and more paranoid. He had thousands shot on the suspicion of plotting against him; his motorcade comprised five identical cars which changed position continually to confuse would-be assassins. In his apartment there were four rooms fitted out as bedrooms; not before retiring did he choose the one in which to sleep.

After the Second World War Stalin chose (or was forced into) partial retirement due to his high blood pressure, whereupon he became even more suspicious, calculating and irritable. Locks and bolts increased in number, and he had members of the Politburo eat with him every night so he knew where they were. All his food had to be tasted—and often had to be doubly tested—by his cronies.

By 1952 he was dosing himself with a variety of pills and iodine drops for unspecified symptoms. Though he had a physician, Stalin considered it far too dangerous to let him near.

And then out of the blue on 13 January 1953 the newspaper
Pravda
proclaimed that Stalin had uncovered a sinister medical conspiracy. It seems the dictator had received a letter from a Dr Lydia Timashuk in which she claimed Comrade Andrei Zhdanov and other Soviet luminaries had been poisoned by his (Stalin’s) doctors. Zhdanov had been the party chief in Leningrad and freely canvassed as Stalin’s successor.

But Georgy Malenkov, a prominent Communist Party official, also coveted the top post. In 1946 he had lost his job in the Party Secretariat following criticism by Zhdanov of his management of the dismantling of German industrial equipment and its transportation to the Soviet Union. So Zhdanov’s death in 1948 was suspiciously providential as far as Malenkov was concerned. And indeed after Stalin’s death he did become prime minister for a couple of years.

Following his old philosophy that ‘if a report is 10 per cent true we should regard the entire report as fact’, Stalin believed Timashuk’s letter. Zhdanov had, of course, been treated by trusted Kremlin doctors who were well-known and respected in the medical as well as the political world.

The hint was enough. Nine were arrested and jailed for what came to be known as the ‘Doctors’ Plot’. Among those arrested was Stalin’s personal physician of 20 years, Dr V.N. Vinogradov. He was arrested, beaten, manacled and committed to a dungeon on the suspicion of being a British spy.

Significantly, six of the nine arrested had Jewish surnames. It was said that five had worked for American intelligence through a Jewish organisation, and three were British agents. All were distinguished, but anti-Semitism was in the air.

More letters poured in purporting medical involvement in intrigue, and Stalin allowed the Press campaign to gain momentum. Members of the Presidium felt there was a lack of substance in the accusations, but never discussed it openly, because, as Khrushchev was to write later: ‘once Stalin had made up his mind and started to deal with a problem, there wasn’t anything to do’.

The interrogations began. Stalin was in a rage and, according to Khrushchev, berated the Minister of State Security to ‘throw the doctors in chains, beat them to a pulp and grind them into powder’.

All the doctors confessed.

On 20 January 1953 Dr Timashuk was awarded the Order of Lenin.

On 1 March Stalin had a stroke. At first his fearful servants were loath to disturb the apparently sleeping chief. When they realised what had happened, all hell broke loose and his room was packed with a host of doctors, politicians and security men.

However, there was no public announcement of any illness until three days later, on 4 March. Then Radio Moscow gave the news that Comrade Stalin had lost consciousness, was unable to speak and his right leg and arm were paralysed. Nine doctors were in attendance; a group of men who no doubt harboured very mixed feelings.

The communique added that the leader’s treatment was under the constant surveillance of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Soviet Government. His chances of recovery were slim anyway, but such guidance would have snuffed out any hope.

Over the next few hours a wealth of medical detail was given to show that everything possible was being done: oxygen, camphor, caffeine, strophanthin and penicillin. Leeches were applied to his head. An artificial respirator was trundled in but, as nobody could work it, it lay idle as the patient slowly choked to death.

He died on 5 March 1953, aged 73.

A fully reported post-mortem absolved the attendant medical staff from blame. Nevertheless, of the nine doctors who signed the report, one died suddenly six weeks later and two others were removed from their posts and disappeared at about the same time.

The Doctors’ Plot was Stalin’s last purge. As no more doctors were arrested after 24 February, it has been postulated that from that date he himself was no longer directing affairs. It has been claimed the stroke was on that day and there was a power vacuum until 5 March.

It has been mooted that Stalin was murdered by poison and a battery of terrorised doctors went along with the lie. To support this it is pointed out that after the first bulletin the communiques became more woolly. For instance, it was said that the albumin and red blood-cell ratio in the urine was normal, but for either matter to be there at all is abnormal.

We shall never know if he was poisoned. We do know that Dr Timashuk’s award was revoked on 4 April, a month after Stalin’s death and the day the seven remaining doctors were ultimately released. Two had been tortured to death.

(JL)

… on May 10, 1941 … the real Hess took off from Augsburg; a different man and a different plane reached Scotland. So much is certain. But the plot which achieved the substitution is still largely mysterious … (Dr Hugh Thomas)

History tells us that Rudolf Hess became Hitler’s deputy in Nazi Germany. On 10 May 1941, during the Second World War, Hess flew solo to Scotland—without Hitler’s knowledge—apparently to offer Britain a peace proposal. While a prisoner of the British, he showed signs of mental instability. After the war, the international court at Nuremberg sentenced him to life imprisonment. In August 1987, at the age of 93, he hanged himself in Berlin’s Spandau gaol.

But Welsh surgeon Dr Hugh Thomas agrees with Henry Ford who said ‘history is bunk’. He argues that in 1941 it was ‘an impostor who was thrust upon, or infiltrated by the British’. The real Rudolf Hess was shot down somewhere over the North Sea, perhaps on the orders of his rival, Heinrich Himmler. Moreover, the impostor did not hang himself in Spandau, but was murdered.

The following account is based on Dr Thomas’s research.

A German pilot did land in Scotland on the night of 10 May 1941. He claimed to be Rudolf Hess, in search of peace. Though thinner than Hess, this man did resemble him. But it is hard to accept the ‘confused and pathetic character’ who landed in Scotland as Hitler’s successor and designate, after Goëring. The pilot asked for talks with senior British officials, but knew little of international politics, or even of his own ‘peace proposals’.

Prime Minister Winston Churchill did not announce the pilot’s arrival, forbade any photos and kept him away from anyone who had known the real Hess.

Both Hitler and Goebbels announced that Hess was mentally unstable. Indeed, throughout his confinement over the remaining 46 years of his life, the prisoner’s behaviour was puzzling and difficult. At times, he pleaded loss of memory; for the first 28 years, he refused visits from his wife or any other relative.

At the Nuremberg trials of 1945–46, the court sentenced twelve war criminals to death. Though the prisoner didn’t seriously defend himself, he received only a life sentence.

By October 1972, when Dr Thomas joined the British Military Hospital in Berlin, the man known as ‘Hess’ was the only prisoner in Spandau.

Dr Thomas unearthed Rudolf Hess’s old First World War records. In 1917, he had a gunshot wound which injured his lung, kept him in hospital for four months, made him breathless and ended his active service. But a medical report at Nuremberg in 1945 showed that the prisoner had no gunshot wounds.

During the time he had been a prisoner in Britain, Hess’s British doctors had not believed his frequent complaints of stomach pains, but in Spandau, much later, he almost died of a perforated duodenal ulcer.

In 1973, the prisoner had stomach X-rays. When Hess was dressing again, Dr Thomas was close by, looking for a gunshot wound on his bare torso. But there was none. Nor did his chest X-rays show any lung damage.

One day in Spandau an officer called out for Hess. The prisoner answered: ‘Sir, there is no such person as Hess here. But if you are looking for Convict Number 125, then I’m your man.’

In late July 1987, messages reached the Foreign Office in London that a Soviet warder had reported the prisoner’s ‘loose talk’. Moreover, Soviet secretary Mikhail Gorbachev was pressing for his release, which the British privately opposed. The four powers controlling Spandau (USSR, Britain, France and USA) were to meet and decide this in late August 1987.

On 17 August the prisoner—by now very old and frail and in poor health—was resting in a garden shed after a walk. The American warder guarding him was called away to the phone in the main block.

The warder returned to find the prisoner’s head propped against a folding chair. His face was purple, and round his neck was a length of flex. The warders could not revive him.

The British insisted that only their own military police should investigate the death and that only one of their own army pathologists (rather than an international panel) should do the autopsy. They also vetoed photos, fingerprinting and genetic testing of the body.

From this autopsy, Professor J.M. Cameron of the University of London concluded that death was not due to natural causes, but to asphyxia, compression of the neck and suspension. Moreover, contrary to Rudolf Hess’s 1917 records, the prisoner had never been shot.