Uncharted Waters for Russia : The illness of Yeltsin raises issues for his people and the West too

President Boris Yeltsin looked decidedly unwell when he made a brief taped television appearance to confirm that he has heart disease and to tell the Russian people he will undergo surgery before the month is out. It was a precedent-setting announcement in a country where the health of national leaders is traditionally treated as a state secret, and it comes after months of increasingly unbelievable assertions by Yeltsin’s spokesmen that the president was simply suffering from fatigue after last spring’s grueling reelection campaign.

In fact Yeltsin may be very sick indeed. A former aide says that besides heart disease, Yeltsin suffers from kidney problems, a failing liver, recurrent bouts of depression and memory losses. Yeltsin is 65.

His country, says the American Heart Assn., has the highest death rate from cardiovascular disease of any in the world. Yeltsin has already beaten the odds by exceeding the life span of the average Russian male by seven years. He may continue to beat them by recovering from what is generally expected to be bypass surgery on two or three blocked blood vessels. At best, though, he faces months of recuperation that would keep him from carrying out the duties of his office.

The prospect of a long incapacitation raises basic political problems. Alexander Lebed, Yeltsin’s ambitious and controversial top security aide, has surprised some by suggesting that before his surgery Yeltsin turn over his powers to Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin. But Russian law has no provision for temporarily transferring power, or even for determining how it should be decided that a president is unable to func- tion.

The law does provide that if Yeltsin dies, Chernomyrdin would take over until new elections are held, within 90 days. Meanwhile, Russia’s top leaders find themselves about to enter uncharted waters, without guidance for determining who, at least temporarily, should steer the ship. Who would have the final say in matters of domestic and foreign policy? Who would control Russia’s still huge nuclear arsenal?

Yeltsin’s failing health raises many worrying uncertainties. With the succession issue unresolved, with the specter of instability looming, it is not only Russians who have reason to be concerned.