Following his wife's example, Soviet human rights activist Andrei Sakharov underwent a heart examination as part of his first trip to the West. The 67-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner, who was examined Tuesday, might receive a pacemaker to regulate his heartbeat before returning to Moscow, a family member said. Sakharov suffers from chronic angina, or chest pain. His wife, Yelena Bonner, came to the same hospital, Massachusetts General, for heart bypass surgery in 1986. The hospital said it would not release test results or provide any other medical information for the next 10 to 14 days, at the request of Sakharov's family. His son-in-law, Efrem Yankelevich, says if doctors decide a pacemaker is needed, Sakharov will undergo surgery before returning to the Soviet Union later this month. The physicist is scheduled to fly home Nov. 18, but relatives and colleagues have said his visa is flexible and could be extended. Yankelevich said last week that pacemakers, which are implanted under the skin, are not generally available in the Soviet Union. Though frail, Sakharov has maintained a demanding schedule and appears to be in generally good health. He is believed to have suffered a minor stroke when Soviet authorities force-fed him during a 1985 hunger strike. That fast, which lasted several weeks, prompted the Soviet authorities to allow his wife to come to Boston for heart surgery. She had suffered two heart attacks. Sakharov was also weakened by a hunger strike in 1981, said Joshua Rubenstein, an Amnesty International specialist on Soviet dissidents. That 18-day fast forced the Soviets to allow a young woman, Elizaveta Alekseyeva, to emigrate to the United States to marry Sakharov's stepson, Alexei Semyonov. ``But it wasn't just the hunger strikes themselves that caused the damage,'' Rubenstein said. ``It was the psychologcial pressure, the isolation, being force-fed, the stroke. Being force-fed is a form of torture, after all.'' Sakharov has commented little on his physical condition. Asked at a news conference Monday about his health, he said only that ``it hasn't changed either way'' recently. On Friday, he is scheduled to travel to New York City for a luncheon given by the Union of Concerned Scientists. From New York, he plans to go to Washington for a board meeting of the International Foundation for the Survival and Development of Humanity, of which he is a director. On Monday, Sakharov plans to visit President Reagan at the White House. In two public appearances since his arrival four days ago, Sakharov has called attention to Soviet political prisoners and warned that perestroika, the restructuring of his country's political and economic system, faces a grave threat from new laws restricting demonstrations and increasing police powers. Sakharov, who won the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize for championing human rights, was banished to the closed city of Gorky in 1980 for his opposition to Soviet presence in Afghanistan. Sakharov's living conditions during his internal exile were harsh and he frequently carried a 30-pound bag with his possessions, Rubenstein said. In 1986, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev allowed Sakharov to return to Moscow.
