Tito's Health: A New Worry

Will Moscow intervene after the dictator's death?

For 35 years, Yugoslavs have known no other leader. Last week they were resigning themselves to the possibility that the end was nearing for Josip Broz Tito, the country's Communist Party chief and President-for-Life. A medical team at a hospital in Ljubljana reported that Tito's overall condition was good. But then the doctors admitted that an operation to remove or bypass a blood clot in his left leg "did not achieve the desired effect" and "the condition of the leg was gradually deteriorating." On Sunday morning doctors amputated Tito's left leg below the knee, because gangrene had set in. The aging dictator had consented to the operation, after opposing it initially.

The main risk was that additional surgery might prove more than Tito's 87-year-old body could take, since he has apparently been suffering from arteriosclerosis and diabetes for several years. After the operation he was reported to be in satisfactory condition.

The crisis began on Jan. 3, when Tito was rushed to the Ljubljana clinic, where he stayed two days for tests and diagnosis. Then he returned to his nearby residence at Brdo, a popular skiing area in northern Yugoslavia. Two famous cardiovascular surgeons were flown in for consultation: Dr. Michael DeBakey of Houston's Texas Medical Center and Dr. Marat Knyazev, a Soviet specialist. The unsuccessful operation, however, was performed by a team of eight Yugoslavs.

The prospect of Tito's imminent death revived quiescent fears about what might befall Yugoslavia afterward. Would the polyglot Balkan nationalities that Tito had united into a nation resume their old, antagonistic ways and 'tear the country apart? If so, would the Soviet Union jump into the disorder to reassert its hegemony over the maverick Communist state?

Moscow was quick to deny any such ambitions. Stories of Soviet intervention in Yugoslavia, complained TASS last week, were "crude and provocative." But with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan fresh in everybody's mind, the disclaimers initially rang a bit hollow. Mysterious troop movements in Eastern Europe gave rise to rumors that the Soviets were mobilizing in preparation for Tito's death. The U.S.S.R. has 31 divisions in Eastern Europe: four are stationed in Hungary, with which Yugoslavia shares a common border. At week's end, however, Washington officials were satisfied that the troop movements involved routine Warsaw Pact maneuvers and were related to events in Afghanistan rather than Yugoslavia. Conscript units were apparently being rotated from Eastern Europe to replace the reserve forces that had spearheaded the invasions.

If an invasion came, observers expect that the Yugoslavs could and would put up a bitter fight. When the Soviets led the Warsaw Pact forces into Czechoslovakia in 1968, the Yugoslav government as a precaution began training civilians in guerrilla tactics. Some civilian groups in their zeal to protect their country even offered to help pay for arms purchased for their units from Western Europe. There

are now more than a million of these new

'Partisans," who can be mobilized to fight

alongside the country's 259,000-strong

armed forces" against any invader. Says

one American military expert: "Clearly,

this would be a much tougher nut to crack

than Afghanistan."

Taking no chances, the Yugoslav government ordered a low-level military alert. Reservists and doctors were told to stay near home and be ready for a quick call-up. The League of Communists--the official name of Yugoslavia's Communist Party--held a special Central Committee session early in the week, and then began a series of local meetings to brief citizens on Tito's health and to emphasize the state's readiness to deal with "any emergency." All government vacations were canceled, and foreign embassies in Belgrade were informed that Yugoslav officials would not be attending diplomatic receptions. Said one government official: "It's not the time for fun, but to be ready."

Tito's illness focused renewed attention on Yugoslavia's succession problem. In 1974, hoping to prevent any one of his country's major ethnic groups from dominating the others, Tito set up a cumbersome body known as the party presidency. It consists of a representative from each of the country's six Republics and two Autonomous Provinces, plus Tito himself. During his life, he remains party chairman. After his death, the eight regional representatives will serve one-year terms as leader of the party. A similar rotation system was set up for the less important state presidency.

If Tito were to die in the near future, or prove unable to carry out his duties because of ill health, his successor as titular party boss would be Stevan Doronjski, 60, a Serb, whose term in the rotation expires in May. The state presidency would be headed by Lazar Kolisevski, 65, a Macedonian. Since Tito over the years has systematically purged the leadership whenever he detected opposition to his policies, Western experts assume that Doronjski, Kolisevski and the rest of the party leadership are Tito loyalist who would resist any Soviet blandishments. This does not preclude the presence of a Soviet "mole," lurking within the party and waiting to stir up trouble when Tito dies.

Experts believe there is a high probability of a power struggle that could lead to one individual replacing the collective leadership. Given the deterioration of East-West detente and Yugoslavia's precarious position between the two camps, it is doubtful that many of its citizens are in a hurry to learn who Tito successor will be. Last week President Carter cabled Tito: "My thoughts and my prayers are with you at this moment." It was undoubtedly a sentiment that most Yugoslavs shared.

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