Roosevelt Enters UCI Medical Center for Colon Surgery

James Roosevelt, the eldest son of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a former West Los Angeles congressman and now head of a controversial national lobbying group for the elderly, has entered UCI Medical Center for colon surgery.

Roosevelt, 79, will be operated on Thursday morning by Dr. Robert Mason, chairman of the department of surgery at the medical center in Orange.

A lesion in the colon that has been bleeding and may be malignant will be removed, said Dr. Stanley van den Noort, UCI professor of neurology and Roosevelt’s personal physician.

“The prognosis is probably pretty good,” van den Noort said. “We are quite optimistic about the outcome.”

Roosevelt, a Newport Beach resident, is expected to spend at least a week recovering at the medical center.

“I’m a little bit surprised,” Roosevelt said from his hospital bed Tuesday. “But as far as I’m concerned, I think I’m lucky it isn’t much worse. The main thing is to be happy to know I can go back to work and carry on the things I wish to see succeed. After all, it isn’t everyone at my ripe old age that has the opportunity to still be active.”

Roosevelt’s surgery comes a week after he and his lobbying group, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, were criticized at a congressional hearing. Congressmen complained that the group had needlessly frightened the elderly with mass mailings claiming that their benefits are in jeopardy.

Members of the Social Security subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee argued instead that Medicare is not in danger and that cuts in Social Security are out of the question because the fund at the moment is running large surpluses.

In testimony to the panel last Wednesday, Roosevelt looked tanned and fit as he defended his organization, saying, “Our cause is a good one; our methods are honest.”

Roosevelt suffered a small stroke several weeks ago. “But I am fully recovered from that,” he said Tuesday.

Times staff writer Lanie Jones contributed to this story.