They Can ana Do Come Back

HEART ATTACK VICTIMS

They Can and Do Come Back

As the possibility that President Eisenhower might run increased in speculative calculations last week, attention inevitably turned on other busy men who returned to their jobs after heart attacks. The value of these cases as precedents is limited by the fact that there is no job comparable to that of Chief Executive of the U.S.

AMONG the most robust of U.S. politicians is Mississippi's 74-year-old Governor Hugh White, who was stricken with coronary thrombosis in 1938, while serving his first term in office. (He was elected again in 1951.) Eleven weeks later, White went back to work. "I had a special session of the legislature on at the time," White recalls, "and the next year I was out stumping all over the state, trying to get Senator Bilbo's seat in Washington. That was no easy job. I lost the election --but it wasn't because I wasn't speaking in every little town in Mississippi." Says White today: "My health is perfect--couldn't be finer." Another governor, Colorado Democrat Ed Johnson, had a heart attack last September, has since resumed most of the duties of his office, while Texas' Democratic Senator Lyndon Johnson is again a man in motion after a severe coronary last July. Johnson has every expectation of returning to his post as the Senate's majority leader, although he plans to delegate more of the work than he did before.

Some foreign political leaders have also returned to action after heart attacks. Pakistan's Prime Minister Chaudhri Mohamad Ali* had a heart attack in 1952, when he was Finance Minister. Brazil's Joao Cafe Filho has recovered from his November heart attack at least to the point of demanding-- without success--that he be given back his job as President. Canada's M. J. Coldwell, leader of the CCF (Socialist Party), was a heart patient three years ago, stayed in politics, and just last week completed a tour in which he made 50 speeches in eight of Canada's ten provinces. Says Coldwell: "My medical reports are excellent, and I never felt better in my life."

It seems more than possible that Joseph Stalin survived to trouble the world for at least eight years after a heart attack. Recalling a banquet at the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, Harry S. Truman wrote in his recent memoirs: "I was seated next to Stalin, and I noticed that he drank from a tiny glass that held about a thimbleful. He emptied it frequently and replenished it from a bottle he kept handy. I assumed that it was vodka, which everybody else was being served, and I began to wonder how Stalin could drink so much of that powerful beverage. Finally I asked him, and he looked at me and grinned. Then he leaned over to his interpreter and said, 'Tell the President it is French wine, because since my heart attack I can't drink the way I used to.' " Stalin died March 5, 1953--of a cerebral hemorrhage.

Commerce Secretary Sinclair Weeks was stricken twelve years ago with angina pectoris, a condition less likely to cause permanent heart damage than coronary thrombosis. Weeks now considers himself fully recovered, works a five-day week from 8:15 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.

In other fields, John L Lewis was hit by coronary thrombosis last September. The Aga Khan had a heart attack last February. Comedian Eddie Cantor, since his attack in 1952, has filmed 39 television programs and taped 260 radio shows. However, Cantor does avoid the tension involved in live TV performances in his shows. ("Ida's feeling was that she'd rather have a live husband.") Actor Lee (Death of a Salesman) Cobb suffered his second attack last June, plans to return to work this week. Charles Henry ("Doc") Strub, managing director of California's Santa Anita race track, has survived three heart attacks and, apparently hale and hearty, at 71, feels "better today than I've felt for the last 15 or 20 years." His last seizure was in 1945. Says Strub: "I drink only moderately now."

One of the warmest, most encouraging accounts of personal experience with heart disease comes from a businessman: Victor Cullin, a vice president of the Chicago Title & Trust Co. "It was Sept. 18, 1948, a Saturday," says Cullin. "At about noon I was on the eleventh hole when I felt this pain in my chest. As I stooped over to pick up my ball, I thought maybe I had been smoking too many cigarettes--at the time, two or three packs a day. I finished the hole, and by the time I was on the twelfth, I was perspiring. I drove the 13th, but I realized I was through.

"The doctor adjusted me mentally, the most difficult part of the treatment. He had to tell me I was through smoking and would have to lead a regimented life. I've just eliminated the side phases of my job and continue to develop trust business. Since the attack, I've gotten a nice reputation for writing and congratulating new victims over their 'coronation.' I tell them how lucky they will be to be living nice clean lives. They can join the North Shore Coronary Circle--that's a bunch of commuters--or the Chicago Cardiac Club. The Coronary Circle is restricted to those who ride the 4:15 out of Northwestern station. We call that train the 'Coronary.' It's the only train that has an elevator meeting it at Winnetka. If you can't take the kidding, you're not getting along well. The whole trend in treatment is to kid about it. My first reaction was to keep my attack quiet. My doctor said, 'We will, like hell. I'm going to put it in the papers'--and he did. In that way, you're relieved of the secret.

"Nowadays I carry on as before. I watch my weight--just eating less, not dieting. I don't play golf, but I could if I rested after each hole--but that's not much fun. I've taken up woodwork--carpentry, that sort of thing. I do a little light fishing, a lot more reading; I play gin rummy, poker, bridge. My work is better since I concentrate more on the main job; I can take four ounces of liquor in a day if I want it . . . I don't lead a subdued life at all."

* Not to be confused with Pakistan's Ambassador to the U.S., Mohammed Ali, who had a mild coronary thrombosis in October 1953, when he was Prime Minister.

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