Prizes: to Win Over Death

The atmosphere in the Norway Suite of Oslo’s Scandinavia Hotel was tense. The occasion: a press conference for Cardiologists Dr. Bernard Lown of the U.S. and Dr. Yevgeni Chazov of the Soviet Union, co-chairmen of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the group that won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. Journalists were haranguing Chazov for having signed a 1973 letter that attacked Andrei Sakharov, the dissident Soviet physicist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975. Suddenly, a Soviet television reporter collapsed onto the floor.

Lown and Chazov tore off their suit jackets, sprang from the podium and, along with other IPPNW physicians in the room, gave the fallen man cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The victim, Lev Novikov, 60, was put on a stretcher and taken to an Oslo hospital, where officials reported that he had suffered a heart attack. Novikov was later described as out of danger. Skeptics said that his collapse may have been staged, an allegation that Lown called “perverse.” Concluded Chazov: “To win over death–you have now witnessed that it goes well for Soviets and Americans to cooperate in this task.”