Chernenko Appears After Absence of Seven Weeks

Soviet President Konstantin U. Chernenko, who has not been seen in public for nearly seven weeks, addressed the regular meeting of the ruling Politburo this week, the official press agency Tass said today.

Tass did not say when the meeting occurred, but the Tass story was dated today, and the Politburo normally meets on Thursdays.

The report that Chernenko spoke at the Politburo meeting came on the same day that a journalist for the Communist Party newspaper Pravda, Vladimir V. Bolshakov, said publicly that Chernenko was sick and that his condition was “stable.”

Chernenko, 73, has not been seen in public since Dec. 27, when television showed him at a Kremlin awards ceremony. Several developments since then have suggested that he was seriously ill.

First Recent Appearance

The Soviet press has carried reports of messages from Chernenko and published decrees signed by him, but there had been no reports that he had spoken to Kremlin gatherings before today’s Tass report.

Tass said the Politburo discussed efforts to fulfill the Soviet Union’s economic plan and heard reports by a number of ministers on progress toward successful spring agricultural planting.

“The reliable ensuring of the spring sowing campaign stressed by Konstantin Chernenko speaking at the Political Bureau of the (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) Central Committee’s meeting, becomes especially important this year as the party and all people are preparing for the 27th party congress,” Tass said.

Phones Not Answered

Telephones at the Communist Party Central Committee’s information department were not answered after nightfall when the Associated Press sought confirmation that Chernenko did speak at today’s meeting.

But the Tass account and the context in which Chernenko’s address was presented left little doubt that he had addressed the meeting.

Earlier today, Bolshakov confirmed in an interview with NBC News statements made to Italian television a day earlier by Pravda Editor Viktor G. Afanasyev.

Afanasyev was the first official to confirm publicly that Chernenko was ailing, but his was only the latest of several comments to Westerners by Soviets about Chernenko’s health.