Governing from Intensive Care

He will never step down voluntarily. He will stay as long as his body will hold. He will run the country from the hospital and he believes that he can get away with it."

So said one of Menachem Begin's Cabinet members last week, after Begin checked into the hospital complaining of exhaustion on Sept. 30. The hospital became, in effect, Israel's seat of government. Begin's three top assistants, along with his secretary, Yona Klimovizky, all moved into makeshift offices set up in the hospital's intensive care unit. Three direct phone lines were installed, including one secure line for long distance calls.

Begin had never had a serious illness until last March, when he suffered a heart attack during the election campaign. He spent four weeks in the hospital then, and got out only 24 days before the election. Within a week after his election, he had to be hospitalized for inflammation of the heart membrane. Begin's physician, Dr. Shlomo Laniado, says his patient is again suffering from aftereffects of the March heart attack. His latest hospitalization followed an extremely active week in which Begin's schedule included a daylong tour of Yamit, one of Israel's new towns in northern Sinai, and a tension-filled meeting with U.S. Ambassador Samuel Lewis, in which Begin was informed in advance of the joint U.S.-Soviet statement. In a TV interview early last week, Laniado flatly blamed Begin's current illness on the talks with Ambassador Lewis. "This conversation," said the doctor, "almost shocked him and tired him so much that all the symptoms of a heart attack appeared again." Begin's aides promptly ordered the doctor to keep his opinions to himself.

Begin is expected to be able to leave the hospital early this week. Even if he does so on schedule, says Dr. Morris Eigan, head of the Heart Institute at Beilinson Hospital near Tel Aviv, he would need "total rest and no physical activity. Intensive physical activities can cause major problems that cannot be cured later."

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