The Brezhnev Syndrome
Long-simmering rumors about Leonid Brezhnev's failing health boiled up last week into a wild journalistic borsch of speculation. In Europe, the U.S. and the Middle East, newsmen variously reported that the 68-year-old Soviet party chief had been struck down by a staggering variety of ailments, ranging from abscessed teeth, bursitis, gout, influenza, pneumonia to heart attack and—most ominously—leukemia. The Boston Globe carried the electrifying tale that Brezhnev was momentarily expected to arrive at the Sidney Farber Cancer Center for treatment of this deadly blood disease. Despite Brezhnev's conspicuous nonappearance at Logan Airport, and vehement denials of the stories by directors of the Boston clinic as well as by ranking American diplomats, the rumors persisted. Inevitably, so did speculation that a power struggle was mounting in the Kremlin for Brezhnev's top job as General Secretary of the Communist Party.
Certainly there was no hard evidence to support the rumors that Brezhnev was on the brink of physical or political disablement. Nonetheless, a few faint signs and portents over the past two months pointed to a possible diminution of Brezhnev's vigor and perhaps even of his commanding position in the Kremlin. Some observers at the Vladivostok summit meeting with Gerald Ford thought that Brezhnev was not his usual doughty, ebullient self. Although he held up well during his initial seven-hour meeting with the U.S. President, he slept late the following day and looked peaked. In Paris for a state visit two weeks later, Brezhnev declined a sumptuous lunch offered him by President Valery Giscard d'Estaing. On the other hand, the Soviet chief was sufficiently revived that night to give a dinner for French Communist Boss Georges Marchais.
In Pajamas. The mystery of Brezhnev's health was compounded by the medical and diplomatic ambiguities involved in the abrupt cancellation of his scheduled trip to Cairo. Although this was apparently related to Soviet-Egyptian diplomatic disagreements, an unprecedented effort was made in Moscow to display Brezhnev as a sick man. Summoned to Moscow to be informed of the cancellation, the Egyptian Foreign and Defense ministers were given white surgical gowns before being received by Brezhnev, who was lying on a couch in pajamas. According to the Egyptian visitors, the Soviet leader told them that his doctor had ordered him to abstain fully from political activity.
At this point, some of the arcane details dear to Kremlinologists began to assume significance. It was noted that Brezhnev had not been photographed, televised—or seen by foreigners—since Dec. 29. The Kremlin's New Year's greeting to the Soviet people, which traditionally has been broadcast by a ranking party leader, was read by a radio announcer in 1975. These incidents could be explained by the death of Brezhnev's 87-year-old mother over the New Year holidays. Indeed, the Soviet press agency Tass reported that Brezhnev had attended the funeral last week. Nonetheless, there were such unusually heavy police and security precautions around Moscow's Novodevichi Cemetery that no Western observers were able to verify his presence. At week's end Tass had not yet released promised photos of the party leader at his mother's grave.
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