National Enquirer, Professor Analyze 'Fordian Slips'

"Three leading psychiatrists agree," proclaimed the National Enquirer in its December 2 issue, that "President Ford is accident prone because he feels guilty about his job." One of the quoted experts was Samuel Silverman, associate clinical professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Silverman, author of "How Will I Feel Tomorrow?", yesterday called himself a "latter-day prophet" because of his "considerable work on the prediction of physical illness." Silverman said he can isolate ten "cues" which can predict physical illness before symptoms appear.

"Two days before it happened," Silverman claims, "I scientifically predicted the likelihood of President Nixon developing an embolism."

Silverman said that one of the cues is "awkwardness or repeated accidents." In recent months, President Ford has fallen twice and bumped his head against a helicopter in Detroit and in a swimming pool in Jacksonville, Florida.

"I think that accidents are not accidental if they're repetitive," Silverman said. "It's that person's way of demonstrating that he or she is under a lot of tension."

But Silverman cautioned that he was only speaking in general. "I don't know what goes on in the President's head," he said.

The psychiatrist said he is "not at all happy" with the Enquirer report. "I agreed to the interview," he said, "but I certainly didn't agree to the way they used my statements." Silverman said he objected to the Enquirer's implication that he made a specific clinical diagnosis of Ford.

But Silverman said that Ford's behavior "resembles" that of patients Silverman has treated for "heading-for-a-fall syndrome." Silverman said there is "a likelihood that something more serious will happen" to such patients.

The syndrome "could even lead a person to get involved in situations where usual precautions are not taken--including overexposure to the likelihood of an assassin's bullet," Silverman said.

Although he refused comment on Ford's adequacy for his job, Silverman said he was "worried about the presidency."