Assessing Leaders at a Distanceexaggerated importance in guiding future events. The manner of
writing the psychobiography should prepare the reader for the
detailed description of the political personality and analysis of lead-
ership to follow.
In the psychobiographic reconstruction, particular attention is
given to specifying the sources of political identity. Erikson's
({1950} 1963) emphasis on the formation and vicissitudes of per-
sonal identity is especially helpful in reconstructing the lives of
political leaders, for as personal identity is consolidating so too is
political identity. This requires careful research in the preceding
generations. Thus the influence of King Abdullah, the grandfather of
King Hussein of Jordan, on the development of Hussein as a leader
was profound. A charismatic man of towering political stature,
Abdullah was ashamed of his son Talal, who suffered from chronic
paranoid schizophrenia. He early selected his grandson to play a spe-
cial role in the history of Jordan and started shaping him to the role
of future king. The boy was fifteen and at his grandfather's side on
the steps of the Al Aqsa Mosque when his grandfather was struck
down by an assassin's bullet. Young Hussein too was struck by a bul-
let but was reportedly saved from death by the medal on his chest
that his grandfather had given him earlier that day—probably a
powerful determinant of Hussein's sense of destiny (Snow 1972).
A psychobiographic nugget from which we can infer the degree to
which a political leader was shaped to fulfill a parent's own ambi-
tions is provided by the mother of David Hawke, former prime min-
ister of Australia. When she looked in the crib after her newborn son
was brought to her, she reported that she realized some day her son
would be prime minister. Her prophecy was to be fulfilled, powerful
confirmation of a mother's shaping her son to fulfill her own narcis-
sistic dreams (Post 1986). Indira Gandhi recounted in her autobiog-
raphy the influence of her grandfather, Motilal Nehru, twice presi-
dent of India and prominent nationalist leader, and her father,
Jawaharlal Nehru, four times president of India, who continued his
father's struggle for Indian independence (Gandhi 1982). When her
parents were away in prison, as they often were during her politically
tumultuous childhood when they were struggling for independence,
Indira Gandhi indicated she did not play with dolls but rather with
toy metal soldiers. At the head of the column of soldiers was one
with a white shield on which there was a red cross, suggesting her