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The Madman in the White House: Sigmund Freud, Ambassador Bullitt, and the Lost Psychobiography of Woodrow Wilson
The notorious psychobiography of Woodrow Wilson, rediscovered nearly a century after it was written by Sigmund Freud and US diplomat William C. Bullitt, sheds new light on how the mental health of a controversial American president shaped world events.
When the fate of millions rests on the decisions of a mentally compromised leader, what can one person do? Disillusioned by President Woodrow Wilson's destructive and irrational handling of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, a US diplomat named William C. Bullitt asked this very question. With the help of his friend Sigmund Freud, Bullitt set out to write a psychological analysis of the president. He gathered material from personal archives and interviewed members of Wilson's inner circle. In The Madman in the White House, Patrick Weil resurrects this forgotten portrait of an unbalanced president.
After two years of collaboration, Bullitt and Freud signed off on a manuscript in April 1932. But the book was not published until 1966, nearly thirty years after Freud's death and only a year before Bullitt's. The published edition was heavily redacted, and by the time it was released, the mystique of psychoanalysis had waned in popular culture and Wilson's legacy was unassailable. The psychological study was panned by critics, and Freud's descendants denied his involvement in the project.
For nearly a century, the mysterious, original Bullitt and Freud manuscript remained hidden from the public. Then in 2014, while browsing the archives of Yale University, Weil happened upon the text. Based on his reading of the 1932 manuscript, Weil examines the significance of Bullitt and Freud's findings and offers a major reassessment of the notorious psychobiography. Weil also masterfully analyzes contemporary heads of state and warns of the global catastrophes that might be brought on by their unbalanced personalities.
When the fate of millions rests on the decisions of a mentally compromised leader, what can one person do? Disillusioned by President Woodrow Wilson's destructive and irrational handling of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, a US diplomat named William C. Bullitt asked this very question. With the help of his friend Sigmund Freud, Bullitt set out to write a psychological analysis of the president. He gathered material from personal archives and interviewed members of Wilson's inner circle. In The Madman in the White House, Patrick Weil resurrects this forgotten portrait of an unbalanced president.
After two years of collaboration, Bullitt and Freud signed off on a manuscript in April 1932. But the book was not published until 1966, nearly thirty years after Freud's death and only a year before Bullitt's. The published edition was heavily redacted, and by the time it was released, the mystique of psychoanalysis had waned in popular culture and Wilson's legacy was unassailable. The psychological study was panned by critics, and Freud's descendants denied his involvement in the project.
For nearly a century, the mysterious, original Bullitt and Freud manuscript remained hidden from the public. Then in 2014, while browsing the archives of Yale University, Weil happened upon the text. Based on his reading of the 1932 manuscript, Weil examines the significance of Bullitt and Freud's findings and offers a major reassessment of the notorious psychobiography. Weil also masterfully analyzes contemporary heads of state and warns of the global catastrophes that might be brought on by their unbalanced personalities.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published May 16, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 30, 2023
Garbage. This is less about the psychobiography of Wilson and more about the career of William Bullitt.I had hoped the book would go through the conclusion of the book in questions, but it did not . There were even minimal excepts from Bullitt and Freud s work. Disappointing
May 15, 2023
My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Harvard University Press for an advance copy of this history about a book, a presidency and two men who tried to get to heart of what went wrong.
To announce that one would be the perfect President of the United States, than travel the country trying to earn money and votes to make this statement seem true, seems a little mad. Or the actions of a grifter as has been proven in our last elections. Coming to the decision that only I could be the so-called leader of the free world, a free world that is coming more and more with limits, that I only I have the strength, the knowledge, the ability and the agility to get things done seems like textbook megalomania. And yet every two years people announce they are running for president, and try to convince others they have the right stuff. Or can grift well. Many books have been written about presidents, what they were thinking, feeling, how their pasts made them, how their actions defined them. Only one of these books featured a co-writer as well known as Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, along with a hurt and jaded American diplomat by the name of William C. Bullitt, who had his own issues. Political scientist Patrick Weil looks at the history of this book, and the events that shaped it in The Madman in the White House: Sigmund Freud, Ambassador Bullitt, and the Lost Psychobiography of Woodrow Wilson.
William C. Bullitt was a self-made man, with a particular set of ideas about family, the world and how leaders should act. Bullitt had travelled quite a bit, was known to many interesting and diverse people. Bullitt also had a thirst for power, and in the government of Woodrow Wilson, had thought that he had met a man who shared similar values. However following the end of the First World War, Bullitt was stunned at how badly Wilson seemed to be handling the peace. Picking fights with allies, getting emotional at times, declaring enemies with politicians he needed for their support, Bullitt left the administration in disgust. Bullitt further burned his bridges by testifying to the Senate about the many wrongs that he felt Wilson had committed. While traveling and having problems with his marriage, Bullitt went to the one person he thought could help in Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis whose friendship Bullitt gained. Bullitt approached Freud with a promising idea. Bullitt would do research on Wilson, talking to friends, family and political cronies, and together the two would write a psychobiography on Wilson, looking at what went wrong.
A different kind of history book, one that covers quite a lot of subject matters. The book is both a history of Europe after the First World War looking at the failures arising from the treaty of Versailles. A biography of Bullitt and Wilson, with a bit of Freud. Also a history on the book Thomas Woodrow Wilson: A Psychological Study, and the many controversies that followed the book's publication. For all the subjects the book covers, the narrative never drags nor seems to get lost. There is a lot of history, both on the people, but of the era. What helps is that the people under discussion are all interesting, Bullitt alone is one fascinating character, worth a pyschobiography of its own. There is a lot to take in, but Weil does a very good job of explaining everything and making the passages not only readable, but understandable.
As I stated a very different kind of history. One that might not be for everyone, but one that I found engaging and very informative. Recommended for both readers of history and of course psychology, as well as those who like to read the stories of people behind the scenes of great events.
To announce that one would be the perfect President of the United States, than travel the country trying to earn money and votes to make this statement seem true, seems a little mad. Or the actions of a grifter as has been proven in our last elections. Coming to the decision that only I could be the so-called leader of the free world, a free world that is coming more and more with limits, that I only I have the strength, the knowledge, the ability and the agility to get things done seems like textbook megalomania. And yet every two years people announce they are running for president, and try to convince others they have the right stuff. Or can grift well. Many books have been written about presidents, what they were thinking, feeling, how their pasts made them, how their actions defined them. Only one of these books featured a co-writer as well known as Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, along with a hurt and jaded American diplomat by the name of William C. Bullitt, who had his own issues. Political scientist Patrick Weil looks at the history of this book, and the events that shaped it in The Madman in the White House: Sigmund Freud, Ambassador Bullitt, and the Lost Psychobiography of Woodrow Wilson.
William C. Bullitt was a self-made man, with a particular set of ideas about family, the world and how leaders should act. Bullitt had travelled quite a bit, was known to many interesting and diverse people. Bullitt also had a thirst for power, and in the government of Woodrow Wilson, had thought that he had met a man who shared similar values. However following the end of the First World War, Bullitt was stunned at how badly Wilson seemed to be handling the peace. Picking fights with allies, getting emotional at times, declaring enemies with politicians he needed for their support, Bullitt left the administration in disgust. Bullitt further burned his bridges by testifying to the Senate about the many wrongs that he felt Wilson had committed. While traveling and having problems with his marriage, Bullitt went to the one person he thought could help in Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis whose friendship Bullitt gained. Bullitt approached Freud with a promising idea. Bullitt would do research on Wilson, talking to friends, family and political cronies, and together the two would write a psychobiography on Wilson, looking at what went wrong.
A different kind of history book, one that covers quite a lot of subject matters. The book is both a history of Europe after the First World War looking at the failures arising from the treaty of Versailles. A biography of Bullitt and Wilson, with a bit of Freud. Also a history on the book Thomas Woodrow Wilson: A Psychological Study, and the many controversies that followed the book's publication. For all the subjects the book covers, the narrative never drags nor seems to get lost. There is a lot of history, both on the people, but of the era. What helps is that the people under discussion are all interesting, Bullitt alone is one fascinating character, worth a pyschobiography of its own. There is a lot to take in, but Weil does a very good job of explaining everything and making the passages not only readable, but understandable.
As I stated a very different kind of history. One that might not be for everyone, but one that I found engaging and very informative. Recommended for both readers of history and of course psychology, as well as those who like to read the stories of people behind the scenes of great events.
Read
August 8, 2023Americans revel in analysing the state of their president’s mind, especially when it helps score political points. Former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson recently ‘diagnosed’ Joe Biden with ‘cognitive decline’, dementia and senility. Biden’s predecessor in the Oval Office, Donald Trump, was probably the most psychoanalysed president in history. Journalists routinely pronounced him a sadistic narcissist with delusions of grandeur. His niece, the clinical psychologist Mary L. Trump, even got in on the act with an explosive book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created The World’s Most Dangerous Man, in which she argued that her uncle ‘meets the criteria for antisocial personality disorder’. More than one million copies were sold in its first week. As Patrick Weil shows in The Madman in the White House, this is nothing new. In the 1920s, Sigmund Freud and the US diplomat William C. Bullitt co-authored a study of Woodrow Wilson. Almost a century later, in 2014, Weil found the original manuscript in Bullitt’s papers at Yale University.
Though today Bullitt’s fame is far overshadowed by both Freud and Wilson, during the first half of the 20th century he was an American diplomatic grandee. He had contacts in all the major chancelleries and served as US Ambassador to the Soviet Union between 1933 and 1936, and then to France until 1940. Bullitt had begun his career as Assistant Secretary of State for Europe in the Wilson administration during the First World War. After the Armistice, he became part of the American delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, where the terms of surrender between the victorious Entente and the defeated Central Powers were to be negotiated. Bullitt admired Wilson’s idealism and strongly supported the president’s plan to build a liberal world order from the ruins of the war. But in Paris he found himself perplexed by Wilson’s erratic behaviour: his unwillingness to receive counsel, his constant flip-flopping, his repeated concessions and then his pompous denials that he had made concessions.
Read the rest of the review at HistoryToday.com.
Theo Zenou recently finished a PhD in US history at the University of Cambridge.
Though today Bullitt’s fame is far overshadowed by both Freud and Wilson, during the first half of the 20th century he was an American diplomatic grandee. He had contacts in all the major chancelleries and served as US Ambassador to the Soviet Union between 1933 and 1936, and then to France until 1940. Bullitt had begun his career as Assistant Secretary of State for Europe in the Wilson administration during the First World War. After the Armistice, he became part of the American delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, where the terms of surrender between the victorious Entente and the defeated Central Powers were to be negotiated. Bullitt admired Wilson’s idealism and strongly supported the president’s plan to build a liberal world order from the ruins of the war. But in Paris he found himself perplexed by Wilson’s erratic behaviour: his unwillingness to receive counsel, his constant flip-flopping, his repeated concessions and then his pompous denials that he had made concessions.
Read the rest of the review at HistoryToday.com.
Theo Zenou recently finished a PhD in US history at the University of Cambridge.
August 15, 2023
Well-written and interesting. However, the title, especially its subtitle, is misleading. I suspect "Madman in the White House" was chosen to reflect the current American political mess.. Yes, the book addresses Freud, Bullitt and their evaluation of Wilson. Each gets roughly a chapter at the start, but Bullitt's career diverges and most of the midbook is about Bullitt during World War 2 and the Roosevelt administration. An interesting biography, but not what the title anticipates. Indeed, Freud makes only a cameo appearance at the beginning and end. The latter chapters revolve around the author's own interpretation of Wilson. The book might have been improved by including more direct quotations from the Bullitt/Freud book on Wilson. Nonetheless, I quite enjoyed reading this book and its presentation of Bullitt's career.
September 22, 2023
Part long distance psychoanalysis, part biography of a Forrest Gump like figure in the first half of the 20th century, and part literary archaeological excavation of how a published history came into being makes for a mishmash of a read.
February 22, 2024
Little about Freud, more about Wilson, but the most about Bullitt, who is not interesting enough to sustain a book of this length.
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March 27, 2024I read about half this book and then the library loan expired. I will get back to it at some point.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews