Kremlin Hints Chernenko Is Expected Back on Job

A Kremlin spokesman Friday declined to say whether Soviet President Konstantin U. Chernenko has been seriously ill since he was last seen in public five weeks ago but denied reports that he is hospitalized in intensive care.

The spokesman, Vladimir B. Lomeiko, also repeated what he had said Thursday--that the 73-year-old leader is taking a winter vacation near Moscow.

Earlier this month, Soviet officials told Western diplomats that a Warsaw Pact summit scheduled for mid-January was canceled because Chernenko was ill. The Soviet leader suffers from a lung disease, apparently emphysema, that forces him to gasp for breath at times when he is speaking.

Lomeiko’s statement to Western reporters was the first official comment on rumors that Chernenko’s health, always fragile since he took office nearly a year ago, was deteriorating. Reporters here interpreted the statement as implying that Chernenko has been ill but is recuperating and is expected to return to his duties in the Kremlin.

But Lomeiko did not say when the vacation will end. He told the Cable News Network on Thursday that it is a “monthlong vacation” but added that he did not know when it began.

Chernenko’s absence during a traditionally busy period for high-ranking Kremlin officials has triggered speculation among Western diplomats that he must be seriously ill.

The diplomats said the explanations for his disappearance recalled the excuses given for the absence of President Yuri V. Andropov in the months preceding Andropov’s death last Feb. 9.

The government-run Soviet media have given no explanation of Chernenko’s whereabouts since he was seen on television Dec. 27 presenting medals to Soviet writers in a Kremlin ceremony. However, the media have carried extensive accounts of his written replies to written questions submitted by Cable News Network.