Medical Spies Keep Watch on Leaders
28 September 2011
This is the VOA Special English Health Report.
Not all spies target military, political or economic intelligence. Some gather medical intelligence.
Presidents, prime ministers and other leaders do not always like to talk about their health. Some disappear from public life for a while and then reappear, with or without an explanation.
Spy agencies search for information about physical and mental health. The idea that a leader might even lose his mind and launch a war or a nuclear attack is not an imaginary threat.
The Central Intelligence Agency has a Medical and Psychological Assessment Cell. It employs or consults with doctors, sociologists, political scientists and cultural anthropologists to examine the conditions of top officials.
Lobby of the CIA headquarters building in Langley, Virginia
Jonathan Clemente is a doctor doing research for a book on medical intelligence. He says the CIA team tries to predict how a leader will act.
JONATHAN CLEMENTE: “What they try and do on the psychological side of things in describe a constellation of psychiatric signs and symptoms, and then to describe for the policy makers how someone with that particular set of findings may react to certain situations.”
Such efforts go back to the Office of Strategic Services, which came before the CIA. The OSS did a psychological profile of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in Germany.
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