Deng Explains His Good Health: Maybe Cigarettes Helped
Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping said today that he is free of disease--and that smoking may have helped him stay in good health.
“The doctors are disappointed whenever they check my health,” the 82-year-old Deng said in a jocular exchange at the start of a meeting with former British Prime Minister Edward Heath.
“The doctors have discovered no diseases such as cancer,” he said.
Heath asked whether he had given up smoking but Deng laughingly lit one his favorite Panda brand cigarettes and said: “Perhaps I am so healthy because of smoking.”
“That is what Churchill always said,” rejoined Heath, a regular visitor to Beijing who is here to conduct China’s Central Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra at a charity concert Saturday night.
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