NEW YORK, AUG 27: Former US President Richard Nixon medicated himself with a mood-altering prescription drug in the White House and also consulted a New York psychotherapist when he was depressed by hostile public reaction to the bombing of Cambodia in 1970, the New York Times has reported.The Times quoting his biography, The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon, said Nixon, who resigned on August nine, 1974, following the Watergate scandal, also used to beat his wife, Pat.Concern about Nixon's mental state in 1974 led the secretary of defence James R Schlesinger to order all military units not to react to orders from `the White House' unless they were cleared by him or the secretary of state, the biography by Anthony Summers, which is to be published tomorrow, says.The book reports that the prescription drug Dilantin was given to Nixon in 1968 by Jack Dreyfus, the founder of the Dreyfus Fund and an enthusiastic promoter and user of the drug, after he had dinner with Nixon and friends.Confirming the account, the Times said that Dreyfus told in an interview this week that the drug is effective in dealing with ``fear, worry, guilt, panic, anger, related emotions and other depressions''.Dreyfus said that he gave Nixon a bottle of one-thousand, 100 milligram capsules, ``when his mood wasn't too good''.He said Nixon scoffed when he said they should be prescribed by a doctor.Dr Richard A Friedman, director of the psychopharmacologyinic at Cornell Medical School, said in an interview on Thursday that Dilantin was properly used to prevent convulsions, and was discredited for psychiatric use.He said Dilantin has ``potentially very serious side-effect risks, like change of mental status, person becoming confused, loss of memory, irritability, definitely could have an effect on cognitive function''.Nixon's pre-presidency treatments by Dr Arnold Ahutschnecker have been reported. But the White House and Nixon allies steadfastly denied that Nixon was treated once he became President.The most provocative charge in the book, the Times said, is that Nixon beat his wife, Pat. Here the author relies on second-hand accounts. He writes of various journalists being told of beatings.His most specific account comes from John P Sears, an aide to Nixon in the 1968 campaign and early in his administration, describing an event that may have happened just after Nixon's 1962 defeat for Governor of California.The book quotes Sears as saying a Nixon family-lawyer ``told me that Nixon had hit her in 1962 and that she threatened to leave him over it . I'm not talking about a smack. he blackened her eye.''The Arrogance of Power, which Viking will publish and is planning to sell for $29.95, is generally hostile in its treatment of Nixon, the Times commented.
