These Presidents And World Leaders Hid Their Health Problems

Franklin D. Roosevelt Didn’t Want The Public To Know He Was Disabled

Photo Credit: Hulton Archive / Stringer

Before Franklin D. Roosevelt served as president from 1933 to 1945, he was diagnosed with polio in 1921. The disease left him unable to stand or walk without support, but he went on to serve 12 consecutive years as president. Although Roosevelt never outright denied his disability, he did his best to keep the public from seeing him in a wheelchair.

Before his death in 1945, a series of hospital tests revealed that Roosevelt had high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, coronary heart disease, angina pectoris and congestive heart failure. Despite his declining health, the then-POTUS and his team did everything they could to hide his condition from the public. His physician, Admiral Ross McIntire, even told reporters, “The president’s health is perfectly OK. There are absolutely no organic difficulties at all.”