The Book of Tells (Peter Collett)[unlocked]

THE BOOK OF TELLS
when you consider that only three of the past US
presidents were shorter than the national average for their
period. Abraham Lincoln, for example, was a big person
in more ways than one, measuring in at 6 feet 4 inches. Of
course there have been more diminutive, and no less
effective, heads of state - like Mussolini and Haile Selassie
- but they made up for their lack of height in other ways,
and where possible concealed it. Mussolini made himself
look taller by standing on a box when he addressed the
crowds from his balcony. Whenever Haile Selassie sat on
the imperial throne a pile of cushions would be placed
under his feet so he could avoid the indignity of having his
feet dangling in mid-air. It's widely assumed that
Napoleon was also short - we sometimes refer to someone
who's short and overbearing as having a 'Napoleonic
complex' - but there's no evidence to support this notion.
In fact Napoleon was about 5 feet 6 inches, which was the
average height of a Frenchman in his day. It's possible that
he simply looked short beside the grenadiers of his
Imperial Guard, who were specially selected for their
height, and that's why we still think of him as unusually
short.
It's essential for political leaders to look fit because
people unconsciously associate the health of the body
politic with the health of their head of state. That's why
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who'd had polio, tried to
hide both his physical disability and the fact that he spent
so much time in a wheelchair. It's why George W. Bush
goes jogging in public, why Bill Clinton did the same
when he was in office, why George Bush Sr played tennis,
why Ronald Reagan made it known that he pressed
weights, and why Richard Nixon squeezed all the
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