Husbands Share Goals, Nancy Says : Over Herbal Almond Tea, First Ladies Find Accord

The first ladies of the United States and the Soviet Union met for the first time in more than a decade Tuesday and, after more than an hour of conversation over cups of California herbal almond tea, they achieved a formal accord.

“What her husband wants and what my husband wants,” First Lady Nancy Reagan said, referring to Raisa Gorbachev, “are the same thing--a better understanding.”

So intense has been the press interest here in the two first ladies, what they wear and how they represent their respective countries that some had dubbed their meeting “Style Wars.” But all seemed peaceful and friendly when Mrs. Reagan had diamond-bedecked Mrs. Gorbachev to tea at the 18th-Century villa where the Reagans are staying.

As the petite, auburn-haired Mrs. Gorbachev sat down for tea, a reporter shouted at her, “Do you speak English?”

“Yes, I do,” responded Mrs. Gorbachev, who holds a doctorate from Moscow State University and still lectures there occasionally on Marxism. “Do you?”

The 75-minute conversation by the first ladies resulted in each woman inviting the other to visit her country, as well as in Mrs. Reagan’s declaration that their husbands have a mutual goal for the summit.

The long-awaited tea, to be followed by another meeting between the two women at the Soviet Mission today, capped separate daytime schedules that had each first lady hurrying from one cultural venue to another.

At the University of Geneva, Mrs. Gorbachev told 300 cheering students: “The future belongs to young people. We must struggle for peace. Much depends on Reagan. We need a success. We can make it.”

During Mrs. Reagan’s visit to a drug treatment farm in Lausanne, recovering addict Jean-Paul Hostettler said to her, “Please tell your husband that we would like lasting peace.”

Mrs. Reagan replied: “Everybody would. I don’t know anybody who likes anything but peace.”

Western first lady-watchers who have waited for the summit to get a good look at 52-year-old Raisa Gorbachev, the most visible and stylish official Soviet spouse in memory, found her to be well dressed and quite talkative, with an easy, down-to-earth sense of humor.

Beginning her day at Geneva’s clock and watch museum, Mrs. Gorbachev passed a Swiss museum official wearing a fur hat and said to him, “You look like a Russian and I look like a Swiss.” When she was shown a watch with an enameled dog on the back, she said playfully, “Does the dog bark? Let’s see if we can make the dog bark.”

After examining the watch, she murmured in English, “It’s beautiful.” And she gushed about the beautiful cathedrals and art in the city, and the need for more restoration experts, “the more the better,” she said.

A Tiny Green Bird

Her favorite piece at the clock museum, she said, was an 18th-Century snuff box. Its enamel top, when opened, released a tiny pop-up green bird as a tune played.

“It’s just like Picasso’s dove of peace,” she said to curator Fabienne Sturm, who led her tour.

In an almost comical scene, reporters bundled like Arctic explorers stood in below-freezing temperatures outside the Maison de Saussure, where the Reagans are staying, waiting for Mrs. Gorbachev to arrive. She was 15 minutes late, leaving time for detailed speculation about how she would look and what she would say. And in a reference to Soviet and U. S. proposals for nuclear arms cuts, the reporters wondered if the two women would agree to reduce their wardrobes by 50%?

After the reporters watched Mrs. Gorbachev’s arrival and had a brief look inside the sitting room, it was back in the cold, where they furiously scribbled every detail, in a joint effort:

Mrs. Gorbachev’s coat was blue-gray and shiny, possibly a raincoat, they agreed.

She wore black opaque stockings, black shoes, a black suit with straight skirt and “a tie that looks like a tongue.”

“Our fashion expert says she should wear padded shoulders, but she wears soft, fat clothes,” offered one reporter.

She clearly was wearing a brightly colored scarf--but what were the colors?

The consensus was that tear-shaped diamonds (what certainly appeared to be diamonds, anyway) dripped from circular clusters of diamonds on her ears. One reporter drew a picture of the earrings to explain. Also she wore a diamond ring--middle finger, left hand.

After the tea, which lasted half an hour longer than scheduled, Mrs. Reagan answered questions from the press.

“We talked about our husbands and the meeting and what we both hoped would come out of it, . . a better understanding,” said Mrs. Reagan. “She asked me to come to Moscow. I asked her to come to America.

“We talked about tea. I happen to love almond tea and I brought some with me, and I explained that if she didn’t like it, she didn’t have to take it,” the First Lady said.

Mrs. Gorbachev apparently drank it happily.

They also discussed the advantages and disadvantages of “big city living” and the Reagan children. “We never got around to her children,” said Mrs. Reagan. “Maybe tomorrow.

“She talked a lot about Moscow or Russia, the expanse of Russia and the different sections and so on,” Mrs. Reagan said. “I thought she’s a very nice lady.”

Did Mrs. Gorbachev seem nervous?

“I think everything relaxed after a while,” said Mrs. Reagan, who wore a turquoise-and-black checked jacket with a black, straight skirt.

Mrs. Reagan said she hopes their meeting will make a contribution to the summit.

“This is one of the things we talked about,” said Mrs. Reagan. “Personal contact is always helpful.”

The last time Soviet and American first ladies met was in June, 1974, when Pat Nixon went to tea with Viktoria Brezhnev.

On Tuesday evening, Mrs. Reagan and Mrs. Gorbachev again met in a social setting, an informal dinner for 15 given for the Reagans by the Gorbachevs. Mrs. Reagan and Mrs. Gorbachev were the only women there. The rest of the diners were Soviet and American officials, all male.

At Dinner Tonight

The Reagans have invited the Gorbachevs to dinner tonight.

Mrs. Gorbachev’s sightseeing activities Tuesday also included stops at the Hotel de Ville, seat of the canton of Geneva; the public library and university, where V. I. Lenin worked during his years of exile, and the Palais des Nations, the European headquarters of the United Nations.

After touring the drug rehabilitation center called La Picholette, Mrs. Reagan ate a box lunch from McDonald’s with 25 American schoolchildren during a boat ride on Lake Geneva. She rode the heated, enclosed boat to the picturesque town of Saint Prex, where she learned that her friend, the late actor William Holden, had made a donation to electrify the chimes in the local cathedral. Holden was the godfather of the Reagans’ first child, Patricia Davis.

Both women have another full schedule of events today and will jointly participate in a ground-breaking ceremony at the International Red Cross Museum.