Diagnosis

Nazi Rudolf Hess parachuted into Scotland on May 10, 1941. From that day until his trial at Nuernberg in the fall of 1946, Hess was quizzed, examined and speculated about by British and U.S. psychiatrists. Last week eight of them published their findings in The Case of Rudolf Hess (W .W. Norton & Co., Inc.; $3).

An authors' foreword apologizes for ignoring medical ethics in making public the case history of an identified patient--though an involuntary one. The psychiatrists' explanation: "In a world where psychopathic men can so easily become leaders and where today they might by their own personal whims or decisions launch another war on the nations, it is for us a duty to study and comprehend the nature of such men." Anyway, they had the written permission of Hess, who is serving a life term as a war criminal.

Hess, the doctors concluded, is probably a schizophrenic of a paranoid type (split personality with delusions of persecution). They note some warning signals: his "extremely primitive skull formation, the misshapen ears"; an attitude of simultaneous submission and antagonism to his father; an "unconscious passive homosexual disposition" and a feeling of guilt over masturbation during adolescence; a self-centered, shy, shut-in personality that craves devotion and spins fantasies of glory but is haunted by a sense of inadequacy and inner conflict.

Psychiatrists conclude that he fled Germany because he felt his isolation from his fellow Nazis growing. But plain citizens will get little help from this book in spotting psychopaths who may become leaders. Even in countries where there are still ballot boxes, political candidates do not yet throw their psychiatric case histories into the ring along with their hats.

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