Gorbachev Gets Lavish Welcome in Romania

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev arrived in Romania on Monday to a lavish mass welcome from a nation that has long been a difficult Kremlin ally.

President Nicolae Ceausescu, who has openly scorned some of the Soviet Union’s current reforms, kissed the Soviet leader three times after Gorbachev and his wife, Raisa, stepped from an Ilyushin 62 Aeroflot jet at Bucharest’s airport.

Thousands of youths in folk costume, teen-agers in blue and gold from the Formation of Youth for the Defense of the Country and other massed citizens chanted “Hurrah!” and “Ceausescu, Gorbachev!”

The Soviet leader reviewed an honor guard and walked alongside the crowd but, in contrast to his April visit to Prague, Czechoslovakia, he did not smile, wave or wade into the crowd to establish personal contact.

The lavish arrival ceremonies for Gorbachev were preceded by a low-key approach from the Romanian authorities to the visit--a marked contrast to the treatment for other Warsaw Pact allies.

Party Paper Not Published

Flags, banners and portraits of Gorbachev appeared noticeably late in Bucharest, and the Communist Party daily Scinteia maintained its practice of not publishing a Monday edition even though this was the first official visit by a Soviet leader since 1976.

The government newspaper Romania Libera placed a biography on its front page, but devoted its entire back page to announcing the translation of Ceausescu’s works into Greek and to excerpts from foreign publications in praise of Ceausescu.

The praise that Romanian newspapers and television shower daily on Ceausescu contrasts with Gorbachev’s personal style and is unmatched in the five other Warsaw Pact countries already visited by the Soviet leader.

The highly organized display for Gorbachev’s arrival continued from the airport to central Bucharest. Tens of thousands of youths, perched atop stands, waved colored scarfs.

Portraits carried by Monday’s crowds showed a realistic portrayal of Gorbachev, including his forehead birthmark. But portraits of the 69-year-old Ceausescu depicted him as a young man.

The two men exchanged greetings in a “warm, friendly atmosphere,” the state news agency Agerpres reported on Gorbachev’s arrival.

They began talks after a traditional folk dance in a city square. State television showed Gorbachev, wearing a red kerchief of the Young Pioneers, briefly joining in.

Despite points of potential friction between Gorbachev and Ceausescu, Western diplomats and Soviet Bloc officials suggested beforehand that any strong disagreement was unlikely to surface in public.

Gorbachev stressed on his earlier visit to Prague that Moscow will not force its allies to imitate its recent reforms.

Romanian officials recently have maintained that they embraced Soviet-style economic reforms and self-management years before the Kremlin and underlined that both nations have the improvement of communism as their main goal.

But Gorbachev’s encouragement of limited private enterprise at home drew open attacks from Ceausescu, who has shown no sign of allowing glasnost --limited but greater openness--in the state-controlled news media or arts.

Independent Policies

Romania has long irritated the Kremlin with an independent foreign policy. This country drew Western praise for refusing to allow Warsaw Pact troops on its soil and for maintaining relations with Israel after the rest of the East Bloc severed ties after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.

Romania, however, is tied to the Soviet Union by a rapid increase in bilateral trade that rose by 25% last year to $8 billion.

Romanians’ access to news of Gorbachev’s reforms has been limited. Their television viewing, which usually focuses on Ceausescu and domestic policy, was extended from the normal two hours a day for a live broadcast of Gorbachev’s arrival.