"It's a rational calculation," Mr. Rospigliosi wrote in a recent newspaper column in Peru 21, a Lima newspaper.

A poll published in Lima newspapers indicated Mr. Fujimori's popularity had soared after the rescue.

He had cancer, Lima newspapers said.

A poll published today in Lima newspapers showed that President Fujimori's popularity soared after the rescue raid.

"This war, one of the most violent in Latin America, is marching toward the seizure of power," he told the Lima newspaper Expreso.

But Lima newspapers have reported that Maria Jenny Rodriguez Neyra, a 39-year-old sociologist known as "Comrade Rita," is the movement's new president.

According to a Lima newspaper, he was seeing about five hundred people a month.

In May a Lithuanian-born journalist with a Lima newspaper, Barbara D'Achille, had been beaten to death by suspected rebels.

A Lima newspaper, Correo, reported yesterday that Mr. Montesinos is living on an estate southwest of Caracas.

Last month, a defector from the organization told a Lima newspaper that the shadowy Mr. Guzman is based near Chiclayo, about 400 miles north of here.