Grapevine

By PRISCILLA PAINTON/

THE MAULING OF MANDELA. Antiapartheid leader Nelson Mandela's ten-day tour through the U.S. is three weeks away, but it has already set off a frenzy of opportunism among organizers, peddlers and politicians. Officials at the African National Congress are so besieged with requests from T-shirt hustlers, record producers and concert promoters that they've started a file labeled SHARKS. In California the Mandela Visit Freedom Committee and the Southern California Chapter for the A.N.C. are jockeying over who has final say about his schedule there. And Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan is preening for a summit. "The No. 1 man that Nelson Mandela must talk to and spend time with in America is Louis Farrakhan," declares a Nation of Islam supporter. Laments one A.N.C. organizer: "Mandela's just seen as a commodity."

With reporting by DAVID ELLIS