American Notes SANTA BARBARA

One recent delegation of Soviet visitors to the U.S. did not tour the Pentagon or shake hands at the White House. Instead, they gravitated to a notorious hobo jungle in Santa Barbara, Calif., near Ronald and Nancy Reagan's vacation home. On a tour sponsored by International Peace Walk, Inc., a Washington organization, ten Soviets accepted an invitation last week to lunch at a scruffy bivouac tucked between Santa Barbara's railroad yards and beachfront.

As trains chugged alongside the food table, the guests munched bread, cheese and apples, and their raggedy hosts regaled them with tales of alleged harassment by local authorities. The Soviets were "shocked," said Professor Peter Serdyukov of Kiev, to see such conditions "in a rich and beautiful country like the U.S." People sleeping on Soviet streets, he claimed, are "there by choice."