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During the 1956 Suez crisis, according to Post, British Prime Minister Anthony Eden desperately sought his doctor, saying, “I must have my benzedrine!” In the 1960s, President John F. Kennedy relied on a “doctor to the stars” for injections that a new biography identifies as methamphetamine.
Eden's drug regimen is now commonly agreed to have been a part of the reason for his bad judgment while prime minister. [3] The Thorpe biography, however, denied Eden's abuse of Benzedrine, stating that the allegations were "untrue, as is made clear by Eden's medical records at Birmingham University , not yet [at the time] available for research".
It was a misfortune not just for the Foreign Secretary, Sir Anthony Eden, but for international diplomacy, that on 12 April 1953, what should have been a routine cholecystectomy in the London Clinic, went badly wrong.
Rumours have circulated for decades that Eden, who was Prime Minister from 1955 to 1957 and was suffering from a debilitating illness at the height of the crisis in 1956, was taking addictive,...
During the Suez Crisis of 1956, an overwrought Eden “lived on Benzedrine”. The drug undoubtedly impaired his judgement. Its effects may have contributed to Eden’s near-collapse, both physically and emotionally, and his resignation as premier the following year.
By the time he became Prime Minister he had quit morphine but was still heavily addicted to Benzedrine. The side effects of the drug included insomnia, restlessness, and mood swings, all which Eden exhibited during the Suez Canal Crisis.
The gravity of his condition was carefully shrouded from the public while Anthony Eden played a stabilizing role behind the scenes.
The role that his iatrogenic injury, its long term sequelae, and the cocktail of drugs he took to treat them played in his decision making has been an ongoing source of debate almost from the time of the crisis. This article reviews the Suez crisis, Eden's medical history, and the debate over Eden’s health.
Anthony Eden, former foreign secretary and prime minister of Britain in the 1950s, had his cholecystectomy performed on April 12, 1953, and started a symptomatic treatment with pethidine, barbiturate, and amphetamine, which could have affected his perception of reality and his political judgement during the Suez Canal Crisis.
His biographer, DR Thorpe, points to how Eden's use of drugs against the pain increased in the ensuing years. And he took amphetamines and barbituarates to counteract the side effects of the...