President Only Tired, Vietnam Says After Reports of Stroke

Vietnam on Monday broke an official silence over the health of President Le Duc Anh, responding to reports that the 75-year-old general had suffered a stroke with a brief explanation that he was tired and needed rest.

Political and diplomatic sources said Anh is paralyzed on one side. They said doctors are not optimistic that he will recover sufficiently to resume his presidential duties.

One source, who declined to be named, said the president had regained consciousness Sunday and had already asked to be allowed to return to work.

Under the constitution, when the president is incapacitated for work “over a long period of time,” the vice president, Nguyen Thi Binh, must act in his place.

If the post becomes vacant, the vice president must stand in until the election of a new president by the National Assembly.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman said Communist Party General Secretary Do Muoi will receive South Korean President Kim Young Sam, whom Anh had invited for an official visit to Hanoi later this week.

Anh is a key figure in the country’s leadership triumvirate, a collective system made up of three powerful figures chosen to ensure balance.

The other members are Muoi, 79, who is seen as occupying a central and stabilizing role in government, and the reformist prime minister, Vo Van Kiet, 73.

Anh, viewed by Western observers as the most conservative of the three, played key roles in independence struggles against the French and then the Americans, in the 1978 invasion of Cambodia and, finally, in normalizing ties with China in 1991.