A Tough Old Bird Recovers

YUGOSLAVIA

But Belgrade gets a taste of the future

For the moment, at least, the health crisis appeared to be over. According to medical bulletins from the clinic at Ljubljana, Yugoslavia's durable President Josip Broz Tito, 87, was "successfully recovering" from the operation early last week in which a team of surgeons had amputated his left leg. His general condition, first reported as good, had progressed by midweek to improving. A photograph released a few days after the operation showed Tito, who has ruled his country uninterruptedly since 1945, sitting in a wheelchair, smiling broadly at his two sons. Because of his age, the critical postoperative period could last for several weeks. But the official Tanjug news agency said that Tito had already resumed "some of his duties." Commented a Western diplomat in Belgrade: "He's a tough old bird, and according to everything else we've heard, he's in pretty good overall shape for a man of his age."

Tito first entered the Ljubljana Clinic on Jan. 3 for examination of circulatory problems. Nine days later he underwent an unsuccessful operation to remove or bypass a blood clot in his left leg. A form of "dry gangrene"--the localized death of tissue caused by a lack of circulation--developed in the leg, and thus the doctors (with Tito's reluctant concurrence) decided that amputation was necessary.

For all of the initial fears that it generated both in Yugoslavia and in foreign capitals, the crisis may have had some salutary effects. For one thing, the Belgrade government had a brief taste of what it will be like to be on its own, without Tito's firm hand at the helm. The collective leadership that Tito had set up in 1974 in the event of his death began functioning automatically. As a precautionary measure against the possibility of an invasion by Soviet and East bloc forces, the country's 259,000-member armed forces and 500,000 reserves were placed on a low-level alert.

Concern over Yugoslavia's continued independence after Tito's death appears to have broken a long stalemate in Belgrade's negotiations with the European Community for lowered tariffs and increased quotas on its exports to Western Europe. European Commission President Roy Jenkins told President Carter and his top aides in Washington last week that the Community was ready to make major concessions to Yugoslavia and to speed up the negotiations. Meanwhile, TIME has learned, Tito made a poignant, personal appeal to Carter for some kind of assurance that the U.S. would not abandon Yugoslavia to Soviet imperialism after his death. The President responded by promising Tito that the U.S. would come to Yugoslavia's assistance if the Soviets were to invade the country.

The exact nature of Carter's commitment was deliberately left unclear. The U.S. is not in a position to send troops into the country, but it could help out with air and sea power. One congressional leader privy to White House thinking said: "We feel that we have a stake in Yugoslavia's continued position of relative independence, as a buffer between the dominated satellites and the West. We are at some pains to ensure that the Russians not seize on the illness of Tito in he mistaken belief that Yugoslavia is not completely stable."

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