Nuclear psychopathy? Exploring psychopathic trait estimates in Cold War political leaders inferred from expert-informant ratings

Recently, resurgent personalist regimes and geopolitical instabilities have amplified concerns about psychopathic personality traits in high office. Yet, psychopathic traits and their associated correlates remain explicitly underexamined within the dynamics of international conflict, particularly nuclear flashpoints, where individual decision-making could entail disproportionate consequences. As part of a cumulative project on functional and psychological factors in Cold War leadership, preliminary psychopathic trait estimates were generated for 13 leaders central to the Suez Crisis (1956), the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), and the Yom Kippur War (1973). Subject-matter experts (<i>n</i> = 149) rated leaders at-a-distance using an adapted 33-item Comprehensive Assessment of Psychopathic Personality-Lexical Rating Scale, a dimensional, non-diagnostic inventory suitable for non-clinicians. Inferred from over 5,000 item-level responses (155 total ratings; <i>M</i> = 11.9/leader), trait profiles revealed domain-specific and between-leader accentuations, many of which converged with historical and behavioural evidence. Representing disparate political systems, higher-scoring leaders exhibited pronounced "Dominance", "Self", and "Behavioural" dimensions (M ≈ 2.04-3.00; 1-4 scale), suggesting recurring tendencies and transideological psychopathic trait manifestations. Strong average-measure interrater reliability supported the robustness of these exploratory estimates, notwithstanding possible respondent artefacts. Accordingly, this study further demonstrates the methodological feasibility of retrospective psychopathic trait evaluations, underpinning future triangulation and potential investigations into their conflict-relevant intersections.