HOW SICK IS YURI ANDROPOV

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85B01152R000100110029-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 13, 2007
• Sequence Number: 29
• Publication Date: July 25, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2007/12/13: CIA-RDP85BO1152R000100110029-6
INTERNATIONAL
How Sick Is Yuri Andropov?
T he old man's left hand trembles notice-
ably. Or maybe it's his right hand; oth-
er reports say the left hand appears "numb
and stiff." His shuffling walk suggests infir-
mity, but then a foreign visitor can emerge
from a tete-a-tete calling him alert and vig-
orous. That calm expression: does it reflect
the cool of a clever negotiator--or another
symptom of Parkinson's disease? And those
disappearances: has he slipped off to a da-
cha-or to a hospital for kidney dialysis?
Taking the evidence as a whole, the patient
obviously suffers from heart disease. Or
perhaps diabetes. If only half the health
bulletins on Moscow's rumor circuit bear
any truth, the wonder is that Yuri Andro-
pov can still get out of bed in the morning.
Without question, Andropov, 69, does
not appear to be feeling very well these days.
The extent of his ailments are, of course, a
state secret. But after a major reassessment
of the Soviet leader's health, U.S. intelli-
gence officials now endorse a guardedly
optimistic prognosis. They have concluded
that Andropov does not suffer from any
major nerve diseases or cancer. They have
also ruled out a serious kidney ailment re-
quiring dialysis-although many Kremlin
watchers in Moscow believe evidence to the
contrary. One of the Soviet leader's main
complaints appears to be a heart illness
dating back at least to the 1960s. His treat-
ment, a senior U.S. intelligence official told
NEWSWEEK, probably includes an Ameri-
can-made pacemaker. The study's overall
conclusion: Andropov is indeed a sick man
who does not wear his years as well as Ron-
ald Reagan. But "according to our actuarial
tables," says the intelligence source, "Yuri
Andropov is going tobe around for a while."
The intelligence analysts concede that
their medical chart on Andropov is far from
complete. Western diplomats and journal-
ists in Moscow must diagnose his maladies
from what they see of him on television and
hear from the foreign leaders who meet him
in person. Intelligence services also debrief
visitors, analyze photos and process any
useful tidbit of evidence. For example, they
monitor Soviet orders for foreign medical
supplies. The stakes riding on an accurate
diagnosis are high-especially when the
Reagan administration is considering a
U.S.-Soviet summit meeting. "You natural-
ly don't want to be bargaining with someone
who's not going to be around very long,"
says the U.S. intelligence official.
Tremors: The latest alarm rang in Mos-
cow earlier this month when Andropov
missed two scheduled appointments with
West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. "I
was sick," he told Kohl when he finally
showed up for the third. Once the session
began, Andropov appeared mentally alert,
West German Foreign Minister Hans-Die-
trich Genscher told his allies in Washington
last week. The Soviet leader spoke without
notes and acted very much like the man in
charge. But in Washington, a team of doc-
tors employed by U.S. intelligence began
working on their urgent rcassessmcnt of the
Soviet leader's health. A videotape study
showed that Andropov's hands trembled
when he used them--a common problem
for older people-not when he rested them.
The conclusion was that the tremors did not
indicate Parkinson's disease. The analysts
also ruled out Alzheimer's disease and
Hodgkin's disease. In addition, he did not
appear to restrict his consumption of sugar
as a diabetic would. Nor was there any
evidence that Andropov consistently used
medicinal drugs that might hamper his
powers of thought or speech.
More controversial, the U.S. team con-
cluded that the pattern of Andropov's pub-
lic appearances argued against any major
kidney disease; he drops from sight often,
but dialysis treatment would require more
regular absences. That finding contradicted
persistent rumors in Moscow-some origi-
nating from a medical source with contacts
among Andropov's physicians-that the
prominent patient suffered from serious
kidney problems. After his no-show ap-
pointments with Kohl, West Germans in the
chancellor's party had even spread private
Soviet reports that Andropov had passed a
kidney stone-a version that U.S. intelli-
gence says could be plausible.
The evidence that Andropov has serious
heart problems--complicated by high blood
pressure-is much better established. He
hashad at least twoheart attacks, the second
in 1966. And the Soviet leader himself dis-
closed that he has an American-made pace-
maker. Andropov mentioned the device
during a meeting with a Western delegation,
according to the U.S. intelligence source.
Somebody in the delegation mentioned
Minneapolis; Andropov tapped his chest
and said he "knew about Minneapolis." A
Minneapolis firm, Medtronic, Inc., supplied
a pacemaker for Helmut Schmidt-and re-
portedly for Leonid Brezhnev. Eachyearthe
company's European salesmen sell about a
dozen devices that they assume aresent on to
the Soviet Union.
`Garbage': A Soviet leader's health will
always remain somewhat of a mystery.
American analysts must work under the
disadvantage of studying photos and com-
puter printouts, not a warm-blooded pa-
tient. "If you've got 10 rumors from dubi-
ous sources about Andropov's health, then
you don't have anything too solid," says
William Hyland, a Sovietologist with
Washington's Carnegie Endowment for In-
ternational Peace. "It's garbage in and gar-
bage out." The precedents are not encour-
aging. Western analysts kept a crisis health
watch on Brezhnev throughout the last dec-
ade of his life. Yet last November the U.S.
Embassy in Moscow was still playing down
the latest reports of Brezhnev's demise just
as a man in a black suit appeared on Soviet
television. He announced that the Russian
leader had already been dead for a day.
STEVEN STRASSER with NICHOLAS HORROCK
and JOYCE BARNATHAN in Washington
and ROBER r B. CULLEN in Moscow
Approved For Release 2007/12/13: CIA-RDP85BO1152R000100110029-6