The End of Another Cold War

By MARGARET CARLSON

During the Reagan years, it seemed as if the American and Soviet First Ladies had decided to continue the superpower rivalry by other means. Raisa Gorbachev and Nancy Reagan's every tea, luncheon and photo op was another skirmish in their mutual assured destruction pact, a frost-filled sideshow of haute-to- haute combat. Reagan complained that Gorbachev lectured her mercilessly on Marx and missiles, compared the White House to a museum, and was given to an imperious snapping of her fingers to summon the KGB to fetch a chair for her. After one White House dinner where Raisa used up all the available air in the room, Nancy snapped, "Who does that dame think she is?"

She thought she was the glasnost equivalent of Nancy; no continent the two occupied at the same time seemed big enough. By comparison, last week's distaff summit was a close encounter of a gentler kind, and a small, makeshift stage at Wellesley College was more than space enough for both. This was Barbara Bush's coming of age as First Lady, her riposte to student complaints that she did not reflect "the self-affirming qualities of a Wellesley graduate." The Soviet First Lady confined herself to predictable Kremlin- speak about perestroika, leaving the ovations for her hostess.

With the do-or-die intensity of her husband at the Republican National Convention when he was trailing in the polls, Barbara, who was once so shy she cried over having to speak to the Houston Garden Club, delivered the speech of her life. She admonished the audience to find something bigger than themselves to believe in, to share laughter, find joy in life and cherish, above all, human connections. The loudest cheer came when she delivered the predictable but nonetheless effective kicker: "Somewhere out in this audience may even be someone who will one day follow in my footsteps, and preside over the White House as the President's spouse. I wish him well."

After that, normalizing the East-West First Lady relationship was easy. Bush had already conceded victory to Gorbachev in the shopping, weight and wardrobe wars. Years of sitting at fund-raising dinners have taught her how to look fascinated by a lecture on multiple warheads, all the while fantasizing, perhaps, about curling up with the latest murder mystery later on. When feigned interest fails, she employs another tactic. Says Rebecca Matlock, wife of the U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union: "Barbara knows how to change the subject when Mrs. Gorbachev begins, you know, talking like she does." For her part, Raisa helped things along by not kicking the First Dog when Millie plopped down on her foot at Thursday's White House tea, and made appropriate Russian cooing sounds instead. Of such courtesies is detente made. The official word after the opening meeting was that Raisa and Millie "had bonded."

The breezy Bush presidency provided the right atmosphere for Gorbachev to tone down her glitzy image, mollifying the folks back home waiting in bread lines wearing RAISA NYET buttons on their nondesigner lapels. Instead of the three wardrobe changes a day of her 1987 visit, Gorbachev adopted a dare-to- be-frumpy look for her round of appearances at the Library of Congress, the Capital Children's Museum and the Lincoln bedroom. Although she could not resist adding glitter to Thursday's embassy lunch with such celebrities as Jane Fonda and Dizzy Gillespie -- so famous for being famous they need no parenthetical explanation even in Moscow -- she had the political sense to leave her gold American Express card at home, the $1,700 Cartier diamond earrings in the jewelry box and a sweep through swank department stores off the program.

When the klieg lights of the summit have faded and the lambent glow of history takes over, Bush's response to the controversy set off by the Wellesley seniors may be what is remembered. While the First Lady's official cause is literacy, her unofficial mission is to convince a new generation of women that there is honor and a deep, sustaining pleasure in motherhood, that a life-style is no substitute for a life. "At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, ((not)) winning one more verdict, or not closing one more deal," she said. "You will regret time not spent with a husband, a child, a friend or a parent." Wise words for everyone.

With reporting by Melissa Ludtke/Wellesley and Nancy Traver/Washington