DOCTOR WHO TREATED REAGAN SAYS, IN BOOK THAT BREZHNEV'S HEALTH IS POOR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100740018-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 18, 2010
• Sequence Number: 18
• Publication Date: May 29, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
4Lx i~.~~rY! wu
. Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/18: CIA-RDP9O-00552
THE BALTE.'O=: ; SLPvd
29 May 193?
F octor
hVe
21 h .t Brezhnev's
Washington (KNT)-Dr. William
Knaus was running the intensive care unit
at George Washington University Medical
Center the day President Reagan walked
in struggling with "air hunger" because of
a bullet wound in his chest. .
A'short time before he treated the 70-
year-old president, Dr. Knaus had sent a
book to his publisher, Everest House, out.
lining the most accurate data available re-
chronic bronchitis caused by Mr. Brezh-
nev's heavy cigarette smoking, although
he has since quit. The Soviet leader also is
troubled by angina pains because his heart
has been weakened and he can walk only a
short distance at a time.
Mr:'Brezhnev also takes special medi-
cation produced outside the Soviet Union
to reduce his heart's need for oxygen. This
reduces the number of angina attacks, one
Soviet surgeon told Dr. Knaus.
"During a 1979 state dinner with
French President Valery Giscard d'Es
taing; the Soviet menu made it possible
for Brezhnev to use only a spoon for eat-
ing," writes Dr. Knaus. "Western officials
meeting with [the Soviet president] report
his attention span is about an hour. At
times he seems disoriented."
Mr. Brezhnev gets far better care than
ordinary citizens do, according to Dr.
Knaus, whose book is a sweeping condem-
nation of the Soviet medical system.
The Soviet president's pacemaker, for
example, was imported, as were the angi-
na drugs.
when one of th
!Similarly
S
i
t
,
e
ov
e
ing vie m ca exper an persona i Union's most important scientists, Msti-
ob
servatton o the ovie ea er. n his
book, nsi a ussian Medicine," Dr.
Knaus described Mr. Brezhnev's health:
"The left side of his body is weak and
his smile crooked, the obvious result of a
stroke. This has also caused most of his
problems with his speech, but compound-
ing it is a severe degenerative hearing
loss.
"The 74-year-old leader, has also had
two serious heart attacks, one of which
left him with heart block, a disruption in I
the heart's normal rhythm... -. .
"Both times Brezhnev was given an
electronic pacemaker."
Today, said Dr. Knaus in an interview,
Soviet doctors talk freely -about the
garding the health of Leonid I. Brezhnev,
the 74-year-old president of the Soviet
Union.
Bullet hole and all, Mr. Reagan is far
better off than his Soviet counterpart, Dr.
Knaus said in an interview.
' He's just in great shape for a 70-year-
old,' Dr. Knaus said of Mr. Reagan. "He
had a prostate operation a few years ago
and wears one contact [lens), and every-
thing else is good as new," said Dr. Knaus,
who had access to Mr. Reagan's records
and results of the hundreds of high-tech-
nology medical tests that were part of the
president's treatment.
Dr. Knaus's data about Mr. Brezhnev
comes from Central n e igence penc
assessments, talks with several high-rank-
slav Keldysh, developed a deadly plaque
condition in the arteries of his legs, Dr.
Michael DeBakey was flown in from
Houston to perform surgery.
One American expert recalled later,
"The problem was that both [Dr. Boris]
'Petrov and [Dr. Alexander] Vishnevsky
[the leading Soviet surgeons in that spe-
cialty] had recently lost patients after
similar operations. Both of them were re-
luctant to operate on someone of Kel-
dysh's prominence and possibly fail."
Dr. Knaus predicted that "the Russians
are, just going to hate my book. I have
nothing good to say about their system,
and they were usually very cooperative
o
when I asked for favors."
Dr. Knaus's book even takes a shot at
.the Dannon yogurt commercials that have
conveyed the impression that many Soviet;
Georgian citizens live to be incredibly old. 1
"In reality," writes Dr. Knaus, "the se-
crets of the Soviet centenarians are, like
American commercials, a mixture of fact,
legend and unchallenged exaggeration."
Dr. Knaus acknowledges that there are ,
many Soviets more than 100 years old, but
he adds that there are a lot of Americans i
over a century old, too. In 1978 the U.S.
Census Bureau estimated there were
11,992 Americans over 100.' The Institute
of Gerontology, in Kiev, estimates }.here.
are 20,000 Soviets that old. . -
Most of the Soviet centenarians live in
Azerbaijan, Georgia and in the Caucasus
Mountains. Dr. Knaus found that one,U.S.
expert, Alexander Leaf of Harvard, who
spent years studying the Georgians and
publicizing their longevity, now is disillu-
sioned.
Dr. Knaus said Dr. Leaf concluded of.
ter writing a book called "Youth in Old'
Age," which extolled the elderly long-
lifers: "I was gullible then. I realize now
that the aging data in the Soviet Union
can't be taken at face value;
Dr. Leaf complained,. for example
that, despite the fact that one long-lifer,.:
Shirali Mislimov, is long dead, the Soviet;
newspaper Pravda prints his picture each:ll
year along with an article about his se-
crets for a long life. "The last time:
[Pravda ran the false story] he was 170;:
Dr. Leaf noted.
The real secret, he found, is that the-
old-timers fib about their age when inter-
viewed because they want to please their
visitors. Studies now indicate that the pee-
ple claiming extreme old age are actually
20 to 40 years younger than they say.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/18: CIA-RDP9O-00552ROO0100740018-2