The cover‐up of President Urho Kekkonen's dementia and its impact on the political life of Finland—a personal account¹

Abstract

Urho Kekkonen, born in 1900, was elected President of Finland in 1956. He stayed in office for 25 years, the longest term for any democratically elected chief of state, until his resignation in 1981. Since he was always a model of good health, news of his cognitive decline while still in office came as a surprise to the whole nation. The impact was aggravated by an attempted cover-up of his dementia. The attempt failed and the health of presidential candidates became, suddenly, a topic of intense public discussion. No special team of presidential doctors was established but Kekkonen's successor initiated a practice of reporting annually on his health. The ethical dilemma involving mass media was, and still is, its duty to inform people versus its right to self-censorship, which was practised in Kekkonen's case. The physicians face the question of when, how and whom to inform when they notice that the president or some other powerful leader suffers from cognitive decline or other neuropsychological or mental disability. These are universal problems whose solution depends on the degree of democracy and freedom of expression in each country. Kekkonen died in complete privacy in 1986. Until now, no scientific report of his cognitive decline has been published.

Aging Heads of State: The Politics of Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders

“…Several politicians listed in Table 2 developed cognitive impairment late while still in office (Antonio Salazar; Urho Kekkonen; Harold Wilson; John Paul II; Ronald Reagan) or soon thereafter (Margret Thatcher; Helmut Kohl; Pierre Trudeau; Jacques Chirac; George Herbert W. Bush) so that their political legacy remained largely untarnished [11, 12]. The US presidents in Table 2 are not the only ones with medical and particularly mental problems, but they have been selected for this lineup because of their prominent cognitive deficits.…”

Mental health of high-level politicians: diagnostics, public discussion and treatment―a narrative review

“…Three presidents had lowered functional capacity towards the end of their term, mainly due to physical illnesses, stress, and aging. The later years of the excessively long presidency of Urho Kekkonen (1900-1986, term of office 1956-1981) was coloured by an increasingly visible memory disorder, which progressed into severe brain disease 5,14) .…”

When Disease Strikes Leaders: What Should We Know?

“…Some cases are relatively straightforward, such as that of Finnish Prime Minister Urho Kekkonen, who in the late 1970s developed "arteriosclerosis universalis" (most likely what we would now term Alzheimer's disease) and then tried in vain to cover it up. 23 Others are more insidious, such as the dementia of German President Paul Von Hindenburg (who appointed Hitler to the Chancellorship), 24 British Prime Minister and Labour Leader Harold Wilson, 25 and American President Ronald Reagan. In 1980, Reagan told The New York Times medical correspondent Lawrence Altman that he would resign if White House doctors found him mentally unfit.…”