Ailing Chernenko Fails to Appear for Major Address

Soviet President Konstantin U. Chernenko did not appear for a major speech Friday, and the Kremlin said his doctors had advised him to stay away.

It was the first formal acknowledgment that Chernenko, who has not been seen in public for more than two months, is under doctors’ care.

His absence, as well as the virtually unprecedented admission that a Soviet leader is ill, were seen by Western diplomats as a sign that his condition is serious. In recent weeks, Soviet officials have acknowledged privately to diplomats that the 73-year-old Chernenko was ill, although one government spokesman said he was on a winter vacation.

Chernenko is known to suffer from a lung ailment, apparently emphysema, that makes it difficult for him to breathe.

In his absence Friday, Chernenko’s speech--the Soviet version of a “State of the Union” address--was read for him. It presented an upbeat view of the Soviet-American arms control talks that will begin March 12 in Geneva.

No Shortage of Gloom

“There is no shortage of gloomy forecasts which doom the negotiations to failure in advance,” the Soviet leader’s speech said. “But we do not share them. Agreement is absolutely necessary and quite possible.”

Chernenko also proposed a Soviet-American statement on the 40th anniversary of the end of World War II to renew commitments for peaceful cooperation.

The remarks, however, were overshadowed by his failure to appear for his most important speech of the new year, one that normally would have been televised nationwide on the main evening news show and reprinted in all the national newspapers.

It is traditional for members of the Soviet Politburo to make such speeches before the single-candidate elections to the Supreme Soviets (Parliaments) of the 15 Soviet republics. Chernenko was nominated for a seat in the Russian Federation’s Parliament from Moscow’s Kuibyshev district, and his election Sunday with 99% of the vote is assured.

Normally Last to Speak

As general secretary of the Communist Party and the nation’s leader, Chernenko was, as usual, to speak last, after the other members of the ruling Politburo had delivered speeches to their constituents.

Foreign Ministry officials had said earlier this week that they expected Chernenko to deliver his speech in person before a meeting of his constituents. However, Friday afternoon Viktor V. Grishin, a Politburo member and first secretary of the city of Moscow’s Communist Party, announced at the meeting in a Kremlin conference hall that Chernenko “would not attend the meeting on doctors’ recommendation,” according to the government news agency Tass. Western reporters were not allowed to attend, and it was not clear who actually read the speech to the audience.

Although Chernenko has not been seen in public for the last eight weeks, a steady stream of his messages and statements has attempted to convey the impression that he was busy at work.

Series of Signals

However, there has been a series of signals that the Soviet leader has not been well. For example, Greek government officials said Chernenko canceled a meeting with Greek Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou here Feb. 12 because of ill health. At the time, Soviet officials denied that any such meeting was scheduled.

Earlier, the editor-in-chief of the Communist Party newspaper Pravda told an Italian journalist that Chernenko was sick but was still running both the party and the government.

At one point, Tass said Chernenko spoke at a Politburo meeting but Western diplomats said they were skeptical since no film clips of the speech appeared on the television evening news.

Soviet officials have expressed resentment at Western reporters’ questions about the leader’s health--a taboo subject. The officials contend that the country is governed through “collective leadership” that provides continuity no matter who has has the title of general secretary of the party or president of the Soviet Union.

Restates Geneva Aims

In the speech read for him Friday, Chernenko restated Soviet aims at the coming Geneva talks, declaring that his nation does not seek military superiority over the United States or its allies.

“We do not need it, for we have no intention of either threatening them, or imposing our will on them, but want to live in peace and maintain good, normal relations with them,” he said.

Chernenko said the Soviet Union wants to terminate the arms race, adding, “We want a real reduction of the arms stockpiles, destruction of a substantial portion of them by way of a beginning, and not the development of ever-new weapon systems, be it in space or on earth.”

In a new proposal, Chernenko said the United States and Soviet Union could “jointly reaffirm . . . the essence and spirit of the main commitments undertaken by both countries at the end of World War II and in the agreements of the 1970s. This would certainly help toward strengthening mutual trust.”