
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 13, 1994                   TAG: 9404130092
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

NORTH/MILLER

IN 1972, THE Democrats' vice-presidential nominee, Missouri Sen. Thomas Eagleton, was chased off the ticket after it came out that he'd received shock therapy several years earlier.

Now, once again, mental-health treatment has been used as ammunition in a major political race. Too bad.

In the years since, the general public has become more knowledgeable and understanding about mental and emotional problems. Many Virginians have family members or close friends who have dealt with, or are dealing with, serious depression or other mental or emotional disorders. These are broadly recognized as health problems for which treatment is usually available and should be sought.

So the Mental Health Association was quick to take offense when the mental-health card was played this past week in the race for Virginia Republicans' U.S. Senate nomination. The association called the episode involving both Jim Miller and Oliver North "a throwback to an ignorant and stigmatizing view of mental illness that ... has not been appropriate for 50 years."

Yep - and, particularly on Miller's part, politically stupid, too.

Miller on Tuesday held a press conference to release tax forms and other "confidential" documents about his past, challenging the other U.S. Senate candidates to do the same. Some in the media apparently assumed that the main intent was to force North to disclose records of psychiatric treatment he received some 20 years ago. But there may be other records, including possibly FBI reports, that could throw interesting light on North's past.

The psychiatric records - assuming North hasn't long since shredded them - may or may not contain something voters should know about him. It may be enough to know that he, like many other Americans, suffered mental problems after experiencing Vietnam first-hand.

It certainly ought to be noted (and thanks should be given for the fact) that North, unlike Eagleton in 1972, is not contending for a job that would put him a heartbeat away from the presidency.

A history of mental illness is relevant when the job in question includes the power to start a nuclear war. It is less relevant in a U.S. Senate race.

In any case, Miller was asked a question that seemed to take him by surprise. Had he ever had psychiatric treatment? Miller mumbled an evasive response - then disclosed, as if it were a confession, that he had had a few sessions himself. Thus Miller's intended point - that his past is an open book, while North continues to keep aspects of his shrouded (or shredded) in secrecy - got lost in the commotion.

Meanwhile, let us hope that any lingering stigma associated with seeking mental-health treatment - inflamed in the heat of politics - may one day disappear in the cool light of reason.

by CNB