Health Report - Medical Spies Keep Watch on Leaders
健康报道 - 关注领导人健康状况的间谍
This is the VOA Special English Health Report.
这里是美国之音慢速英语健康报道。
Not all spies target military, political or economic intelligence. Some gather medical intelligence.
并非所有间谍都以军事、政治或经济情报为目标。有些间谍专门搜集医疗情报。
Presidents, prime ministers and other leaders do not always like to talk about their health. Some disappear from public life for a while and then reappear, with or without an explanation.
总统、总理和其他领导人并不总是喜欢谈论他们的健康状况。有些领导人会淡出公众视野一段时间，随后重新出现，而不一定会有解释。
Spy agencies search for information about physical and mental health. The idea that a leader might even lose his mind and launch a war or a nuclear attack is not an imaginary threat.
间谍机构搜集有关身体和精神健康的情报。某位领导人可能失去理智发动一场普通战争或核战争的观点并非一种假想威胁。
The Central Intelligence Agency has a Medical and Psychological Assessment Cell. It employs or consults with doctors, sociologists, political scientists and cultural anthropologists to examine the conditions of top officials.
中央情报局（简称CIA，中情局）拥有一个健康和心理评估小组。他们雇佣或咨询医生、社会学家、政治学家和文化人类学家来评估高层官员的状况。
Jonathan Clemente is a doctor doing research for a book on medical intelligence. He says the CIA team tries to predict how a leader will act.
乔纳森·克莱门特（Jonathan Clemente）是一位医生，他为一本关于医疗情报的书籍做研究。他表示，中情局试图预测领导人的行事方式。
JONATHAN CLEMENTE: “What they try and do on the psychological side of things in describe a constellation of psychiatric signs and symptoms, and then to describe for the policy makers how someone with that particular set of findings may react to certain situations.”
克莱门特：“他们在心理学方面试图描述一种精神迹象和征兆的“情意丛（constellation）”，然后向政策制定者报告这类人在特定情况下会如何反应。”
Such efforts go back to the Office of Strategic Services, which came before the CIA. The OSS did a psychological profile of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in Germany.
类似努力可以追溯到中情局前身战略情报局。战略情报局制作了一份德国纳粹领导人希特勒的心理档案。
The CIA was established in nineteen forty-seven. Dr. Clemente says the agency formed a small office called "Leadership at a Distance."
中情局成立于1947年。克莱门特博士表示，该机构成立了一个名为“运筹帷幄（Leadership at a Distance）”的小办公室。
JONATHAN CLEMENTE: "In the late fifties and early nineteen sixties, the CIA decided that they had expertise to look more carefully and in a more rigorous, analytical way at the health of foreign leaders in order to help give policy makers some forewarning of a transition in a government, stability of foreign governments, and also looking for potential points of diplomatic leverage.”
克莱门特：“五十年代末六十年代初，中情局认为有能力以更加严密的分析方式来更加周密地调查外国领导人的健康状况，从而给政治制定者在外国政权过渡和和外国政府的稳定性上提供预警，同时寻找潜在的外交杠杆要点。”
Experts say dying leaders can feel they have to act quickly to make sure their decisions live longer than they do.
专家表示，不久于人世的领导人会觉得他们必须迅速采取行动，以确保其政策的持续性。
Physical and mental health are closely linked, experts say. But identifying a mental condition without direct examination of a person can be much more difficult than a physical disorder.
专家称，身体和精神健康紧密相联。但间接判断一个人的精神状况比判断身体疾病难得多。
Rose McDermott is a political psychologist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. She points out that an illness like bipolar disorder can be well-controlled on medication. But a leader’s behavior can also be affected by medication taken for a physical condition.
罗丝·麦克德莫特（Rose McDermott）是布朗大学的政治心理学家，这所大学位于罗德岛的普罗维登斯。她指出，躁郁症等疾病可以通过药物有效控制。但领导人的行为也会受到因身体状况而服用的药物的影响。
Rose McDermott: "The concern is not just the illness, it's also the medication that people take while they are ill and how that can compromise their decision-making ability, cognitively and intellectually. So they don’t make the same kind of decisions, their decisions may not be as predictable. They certainly may not be as, quote unquote, rational.
麦克德莫特：“令人担忧的不仅仅是疾病，还包括患者患病时服用的药物，以及该药物对他们决策能力、认知和智力的影响。因此他们做出的决定可能不同，他们的决定可能不可预测。当然还可能不太么理性。”
Professor McDermott has written extensively on medical intelligence.
麦克德莫特教授撰写了大量医学情报方面的作品。
ROSE McDERMOTT: “It can be decisively important because it can really change the stability of governments, particularly in authoritarian or totalitarian regimes, where there’s really a limited number of people who have powerful decision-making authority."
麦克德莫特：“医疗情报显然及其重要。因为它可以改变政权的稳定性，尤其是专制或极权主义的政权。这种政权中具有强大决策权力的人极其稀少。”
And that’s the VOA Special English Health Report. I’m Jim Tedder.
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Contributing: Gary Thomas |