Leader Personality Assessments in Support of Government Policyistration. The CIA had amassed a great deal of open material, includ-
ing films as well as interviews and articles. The panel of some twenty
psychiatrists, psychologists, and internal medicine specialists
immersed themselves in the films, speeches, and interviews and
developed assessments of his political personality and health.
In 1961, when President Kennedy was to meet with First Party
secretary Khrushchev in Vienna in a major summit meeting, Bryant
Wedge, a psychoanalytically trained psychiatrist who was a member
of the panel, wrote Kennedy a memo summarizing the conference
findings, with emphasis on implications for negotiations.^1
Khrushchev was described as a stable hypomanic character, which
Wedge characterized as a chronic optimistic opportunist. Yet his
impulsivity was noted too. While it was opined that Khrushchev
could tolerate disagreement, there was no point in trying to persuade
or convince him of it. Wedge also advanced recommendations for
dealing with him when he was being thoroughly unreasonable. He
also emphasized the fundamental differences between Khrushchev
and Stalin.
It is important to observe that the conference of clinicians con-
cluded that Khrushchev had a recognizable clinical character type,
based on what was essentially a phenomenological analysis. The clear
personality type on which they consensually agreed has important
implications for negotiations. Unlike the Langer study of Hitler,
which was heavily psychobiographic in approach and combined with
a phenomenological portrait to infer the psychological conflicts driv-
ing political behavior, the Khrushchev study was a detailed descrip-
tion of Khrushchev's personality style based on intensive study of his
present-day leadership functioning. Wedge observes that he does not
know who read his memo or to what uses it was put.
The Establishment of the Center for the Analysis
of Personality and Political Behavior
Started in 1965, the pilot program to assess leader personality at a
distance was initially based in the Psychiatric Staff of the CIA's
Office of Medical Services. Because the products of this experimental
effort were well received by senior U.S. government officials, it was
determined that the effort should be formally incorporated within
the Directorate of Intelligence, which provided finished intelligence