Kitty Dukakis’ Homecoming: Warmed-Over Lasagna

A smiling Kitty Dukakis, wife of Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, returned to her Brookline, Mass., home after a monthlong stay at a Rhode Island clinic for treatment of alcohol abuse. “Doesn’t she look terrific,” the governor said as he and his wife emerged from a car driven by her father, Harry Ellis Dickson. Asked what was the best part of returning home, Mrs. Dukakis said: “Being with my husband.” Without missing a beat, her husband added: “Being with my wife.” Mrs. Dukakis, 52, had been in Edgehill Newport, an intensive residential facility, since Feb. 5. The governor and his wife planned a quiet day at home, with Dukakis capping off the homecoming by reheating a lasagna dinner prepared by a friend. In a statement, Dukakis expressed gratitude for the public support for his wife. While in treatment, Mrs. Dukakis received about 5,000 letters, including good wishes from First Lady Barbara Bush, Nancy Reagan and Betty Ford. Mrs. Dukakis had revealed during her husband’s campaign that she had earlier conquered a 26-year addiction to diet pills.

--On the other side of the world, the wife of another political figure was in the news when the official Soviet news agency gave rare coverage to Raisa Gorbachev. “If people currently are more confident of a peaceful future, we know that much of the credit goes to women actively working on all continents for friendship, cooperation and profound mutual understanding of nations,” Tass reported the Kremlin First Lady as saying at a reception she gave in honor of International Women’s Day, a Soviet holiday that will be celebrated today. Although Mrs. Gorbachev is shown frequently on Soviet state-run television and has been interviewed by Western reporters, her views are rarely reported in Soviet media. Not to be outdone by his wife, Mikhail S. Gorbachev also made headlines. The Communist Party youth daily Komsomolets Tadzhikistan said he has donated $82,000 from the U.S. sales of his book “Perestroika” to the Tadzhikistan earthquake fund. The paper from the central Asian republic reported that the money will go for rebuilding homes and public buildings in three villages devastated in a Jan. 23 earthquake and subsequent mudslide. About 280 people were killed.