Yeltsin’s Surgery

In your articles about Boris Yeltsin’s upcoming heart surgery (Sept. 6-7), you repeat the frequently made point that the 65-year-old Yeltsin has already lived eight years beyond the average life expectancy for Russian males. While the statement is true, it is also quite misleading.

Yeltsin is not an average Russian; as a long-time member of the former Communist elite, he has received medical care at the finest Soviet health facilities, reserved only for the top party bosses. For such privileged Russians, the average life expectancy statistic is meaningless. Witness the prolonged life of President Leonid Brezhnev, who was kept alive by top Soviet doctors, where the average Russian would have died long before.

MICHAEL J. BAZYLER

Whittier