First Lady Forecast: Chilly, Fewer Storms

“Who does that dame think she is?” a miffed Nancy Reagan reportedly wondered aloud about Raisa Gorbachev near the end of their husbands’ first summit meeting in Geneva.

Starting this weekend, the U.S. First Lady may get a better idea--and U.S. and Soviet officials in Moscow are predicting a different sort of Mrs. Gorbachev than the feisty one Nancy Reagan saw in Washington last December.

Despite widespread anticipation of more tense encounters between the two wives, officials here predict a more subdued, less showy Soviet first lady now that she and Mrs. Reagan will be meeting for the first time on Mrs. Gorbachev’s home turf.

As a hostess, one Western diplomat predicted, Mrs. Gorbachev will feel less competitive than she did in the American capital and less prone to that “kind of swagger that afflicts most patriotic Russians who travel abroad.” And at home, other Western observers said, she will be under traditional constraints to stay well in her husband’s shadow.

Indeed, her public appearances--at least in the company of Mrs. Reagan--will be strictly limited during the President’s five-day official visit, which begins Sunday. Except for formal events where protocol dictates that the Reagans join the Gorbachevs, the two wives will meet alone only twice for fairly brief periods.

The First Lady will tour the Kremlin’s gold-domed Assumption Cathedral with her hostess on Sunday. But she’ll go on her own to a Moscow school and the grave of writer Boris Pasternak. And on a visit to Leningrad, she’ll be escorted by Lidiya Gromyko, wife of the Soviet President.

Only on Wednesday will she have Mrs. Gorbachev at her side publicly again, when she spends 45 minutes touring Moscow’s Tretyakov art gallery--a minimal amount of time, considering the huge size of the museum’s collection.

In fact, American officials in Moscow have been taking pains to point out that Mrs. Reagan’s visit is not a joint appearance by the first ladies. “I’m not going to talk about them as a pair,” said one American diplomat.

By many accounts in the Soviet capital, Mrs. Gorbachev is under public pressure to get out of the media spotlight and start acting more like the traditional general secretary’s spouse.

“People have different opinions,” said Vladimir Brodetsky, foreign desk chief for Moscow News, a weekly Soviet newspaper that under the policy of glasnost has become known for its aggressive reporting. “Some people adore her. I couldn’t say the majority. I have heard very pleasant words on her. But I also hear some people express dissatisfaction that she appears on TV too much.”

One Soviet official, speaking privately, believes the Soviet public simply isn’t ready to see an American-style, high-profile first lady. “People are a little bit angry at her because they want a difference between capitalist and socialist countries. It looks like we’re copying you,” he said.

Kremlin watchers based in Moscow believe that Mrs. Gorbachev’s popularity at home may have slipped because of the Washington summit, where the intense coverage of her included unprecedented personal exposure in the Soviet media.

“The hue and cry may have kind of peaked after the Washington summit,” notes one Western diplomat here. “It’s important (in internal Soviet politics) for the Soviet press not to reflect the international press coverage, but she still became the object of attention.”

A Decrease in Coverage

There are persistent rumors that Mrs. Gorbachev’s role has been discussed at the highest levels of the government, including the Central Committee and possibly even the ruling Politburo. Some American officials have noticed that Soviet press coverage of Mrs. Gorbachev has decreased markedly in recent months.

However, journalist Brodetsky notes that the reason may well be that the Gorbachevs simply haven’t traveled as extensively lately. And he said Moscow News plans a “big story” about the meeting between the first ladies, including three or four pictures. Until now, he added, Moscow News has only run small articles about Mrs. Gorbachev.

Soviet officials appear to be sincerely confounded by continuing Western press accounts of the rift between the two women. “It’s not the Soviet press (doing this). Not at at all,” concludes Gennady Gerasimov, the chief Soviet spokesman.

Brodetsky says that he personally reviewed photographs from the Washington summit when he heard reports about the schism. “I’ve looked at her and Mrs. Reagan together,” he said, “and I didn’t get anything that it did not go quite smoothly.”

However, it is unlikely that any Western reporters in Moscow for the summit will be able to ask Mrs. Gorbachev what the situation really is. Ranking Soviet officials have already spread the word that there will be no interviews with the Soviet first lady, not even for the Soviet press.

One Soviet source says that Mrs. Gorbachev turned down several “important” Western press interview requests despite the urging of her husband’s aides to do them.

The frosty relations between the two wives date to their first meeting during the 1985 summit in Geneva when, during a dinner party, Mrs. Gorbachev fervently lectured President Reagan on the virtues of communism. “Who does that dame think she is?” Nancy Reagan was quoted as saying after the dinner.

Nancy Reagan did not go to Iceland the following October for the Reykjavik summit on the theory that the wives were not going to attend. But Mrs. Gorbachev went anyway and reaped a harvest of publicity.

Took Offense

When the wives met again at the Washington summit, White House sources said, the First Lady was personally offended when Mrs. Gorbachev failed to express concern either about the recent death of her mother, Edith Davis, or about her recovery from breast cancer surgery. The Soviet first lady, the sources recalled, seemed more interested in focusing press attention on herself rather than tending to the social niceties.

But she managed to impress Washingtonians in a busy round of gallery tours and a lunch at the Georgetown home of Democratic Party activist Pamela Harriman. And she engaged in what many interpreted as a bit of one-upmanship during a tour of the White House by asking Mrs. Reagan detailed historical questions about the official residence and then dismissing it as more of a “museum” than a home.

Mrs. Reagan got her revenge earlier this year at the annual Gridiron Club dinner when she brought down the house with a satirical ditty sung to the tune of “Thanks for the Memories.” One line referred to “the Soviet Mona Lisa, sometimes known as Raisa,” and a beaming President Reagan said afterward: “Raisa, top that!”

Mrs. Reagan’s blunt question at the Geneva summit, reported by former White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan in his controversial new book, curiously corresponds with the attitude of many ordinary Soviet citizens toward Gorbachev’s wife. In the past, wives of Soviet leaders remained almost entirely in the background, and a few were rarely seen in public except at their husband’s funeral.

Very Visible Role

Mrs. Gorbachev, by contrast, has assumed an extremely visible role in her husband’s campaign for perestroika, or restructuring of Soviet economic and social life. She frequently appears on Soviet television accompanying her husband on trips within the country and abroad to Britain, France, Switzerland, Bulgaria, India, Iceland, Romania and Czechoslovakia. And in an interview with NBC, Gorbachev himself said: “We discuss everything,” including policy matters.

A petite, auburn-haired woman with typical high Russian cheekbones and a winning smile, she has shown an enthusiastic interest in fashion and the arts during her foreign journeys. She has taught herself a few phrases in English and, while in India, gave the traditional greeting with palms pressed together known as “namaste. “

Nancy Reagan, for her part, has prepared for her first trip to the Soviet Union by learning some simple Russian greetings and reading four books about Russian history, the Bolshevik revolution, Russian arts and the Hermitage. Missing from her reading list were the many books written by or about Gorbachev.

The First Lady has also talked to her son, Ron, about his trips to Moscow and consulted with friends who traveled there. And Librarian of Congress Ray Billington, an authority on the Soviet Union, has had several discussions with her.

Learned Russian Greetings

U.S. officials in Moscow said that Mrs. Reagan, recalling Mrs. Gorbachev’s gaffe in Washington of saying “good morning” in English even during the evening hours, has taken pains to learn Russian greetings for various times of the day.

Mrs. Gorbachev also has been boning up on U.S. culture and recently came to two events sponsored by the U.S. Embassy. She attended a Dance Theater of Harlem performance May 13 (“She came to be seen,” said one U.S. diplomat), and earlier this year she attended an American arts exhibit.

It may not be surprising that Nancy Davis Reagan, daughter of well-to-do parents who has been surrounded by wealth and luxury most of her life, does not share the same outlook on life as Raisa Maximovna Gorbacheva, child of a Siberian railroad worker who learned and later espoused the egalitarian precepts of Marxism-Leninism.

For Nancy Reagan, a former actress on stage and in films, the spotlight has been familiar. She gained experience as a political wife when Ronald Reagan was a governor of California for eight years, and she has hobnobbed with world leaders at home and abroad since becoming First Lady in 1981. While she initially gained a reputation in Washington for caring more about clothes than common people’s concerns, she later campaigned hard against drug abuse and softened her image with self-deprecating humor.

Sketchy Information

Information about Raisa Gorbachev’s background is sketchy. She is believed to be about a year or two younger than her husband, who is 57. They met when he was in law school and she was studying for a philosophy degree at Moscow State University in the early 1950s.

They were married in about 1955 and lived for more than 20 years in Gorbachev’s hometown of Stavropol in the Trans-Caucasus area, where he was a top Communist party official. They moved back to Moscow in 1978, when he was named to the party secretariat, beginning his rapid climb to the top Kremlin post in March of 1985.

The Kremlin’s First Lady is a relative newcomer on the world scene, and occasionally it shows. When she visited Paris a few years ago, for example, fashion writers were aghast when she wore the same outfit for the airport arrival ceremony and lunch the next day.

Even during her Washington visit last year, eyebrows were raised among the fashion-conscious by her choice of dark stockings with elaborate designs for daytime wear. Her fondness for large earrings has also drawn frowns from sophisticated Westerners.

If any of this criticism bothers the cheerful Raisa Maximovna, it is not apparent. At last December’s summit in Washington, Vice President George Bush was impressed by a Russian diva’s rendition of a romantic song during a dinner at the Soviet Embassy. He jokingly confided to Mrs. Gorbachev that, under the singer’s spell, he had fallen in love with her.

“You shouldn’t do that,” she playfully chided Bush. “It’s an election year--remember what happened to Gary Hart.”