A Tough Guy's Toughest Fight

A political operative who specializes in bareknuckle campaigns, Lee Atwater is facing his roughest contest yet. The Republican National Committee chairman was hospitalized last week in Montefiore Medical Center in New York City for treatment of a brain tumor known as an upper-grade astrocytoma. Chief neurologist Dr. Paul Kornblith described it as "so aggressive, we had to go after it with hammer and tongs." Dr. William Shapiro of the Brain Tumor Cooperative Group, a nationwide research organization of neurosurgeons, estimates that Atwater, 39, has only a 10% chance of surviving more than five years.

Characteristically, Atwater is going all out against this latest adversary. He opted last week to undergo a specialized treatment, in which tubes containing massive doses of radioactive isotopes were implanted directly into the tumor in the right lobe of his brain. After five days, the tubes were removed, and Atwater was expected to return home this week. In three months, doctors will test the results.

The illness interrupted a string of personal pluses for a man who last year was appointed the second youngest R.N.C. chairman in the party's history. A first album of his blues-guitar music (Atwater's avocation) was released last week, and Atwater's wife Sally is expected to give birth to their third daughter this week.

Friends say Atwater speaks confidently of overcoming his illness and keeps in touch with the White House and the R.N.C. He grills doctors for highly technical information about the nature of his disease and his treatment. At the same time, he is following editor Norman Cousins' prescription that laughter is the best medicine. Atwater has watched videotapes of the Three Stooges and W.C. Fields' film Never Give a Sucker an Even Break. Black humor also helps: he presented some friends with copies of his new album and a souvenir tuft of his hair, which has been falling out from radiation treatments.

Atwater's illness comes at a critical time for his party. In elections this fall, the Republicans face 36 gubernatorial races and 34 Senate contests. Atwater had vowed he would be "brutal" about targeting congressional districts to reduce the Democrats' 82-seat House majority, but even he admits he has since lost his taste for hand-to-hand political combat.