ON THE PAPAL ROUTE : 2 Little Girls Win 1st Papal Smile of Visit

He had descended from his jumbo jet, gestured to the grandstands, clasped hands with President Reagan and the First Lady and worked a short reception line of cardinals and politicians before Pope John Paul II noticed the two little girls waiting shyly with flowers.

In an instant, he changed. For the first time since arriving, he smiled the warm, wide familiar smile. And for the first time, it seemed, he stopped playing the role of visiting foreign dignitary. He was the Pope.

He moved quickly to the girls, Reagan following a few strides behind. The Pope ran his hands over the faces of the youngsters in a blessing and began to chat.

“I said, ‘Welcome to Miami, Your Holiness,’ ” recalled Julie McCormick, a 9-year-old from Fort Lauderdale with an abundance of freckles and a shortage of front teeth. “And he said, ‘You have a beautiful smile.’ ”

The other girl was Nancy Bourjolly, an 8-year-old from Miami who wore a frilly First Communion dress of white chiffon. Her father is a tailor, and he had sewn it for her several months ago.

First Lady’s Flowers

“He said to me, ‘My, don’t you look nice today?’ ” Nancy said later. Her father stood a few feet away, beaming.

She handed the Pope the large bouquet of orchids and birds of paradise. The flowers had been intended for Nancy Reagan, but here was the Pope, so she just gave them to him.

After his exchange with the flower-bearers--chosen from among Florida parishioners--the Pope moved with Reagan to a podium. It was time for national anthems and prepared texts and all the rest of the business of official greetings.

The ceremony took place in a back corner of the sprawling Miami International Airport, a spot left usually to the comings and goings of air freight and an occasional special event. Eugene Hasenfus, the mercenary munitions delivery man who was shot down in Central America, had deplaned here with some ceremony after being freed from his Nicaraguan jail cell. The Miami Dolphins have returned to the same spot after Super Bowls.

A crowd estimated at 5,000, an invitation-only mix of distinguished churchgoers, local bishops and politicians, had begun to gather in the grandstands hours in advance of the scheduled arrival of the Pope and the President.

Many wore yellow and waved the yellow-and-white flags of the Vatican, and a few unfurled the red-and-white banner of pre-Castro Cuba. Not a single U.S. flag could be seen among the spectators. As one of the stagehands would put it later, “It was the Pope’s day.”

When, after their long wait, John Paul appeared in the doorway of his plane, the crowd cheered. President and Mrs. Reagan, who had arrived first, waited at the foot of the aircraft stairway.

A pool of at least a score of photographers had been positioned under the wing of the Pope’s jetliner, expecting to record the now almost traditional image of the well-traveled pontiff planting a kiss on yet another Tarmac.

This time, though, they were disappointed. After the reception line and his exchange with the children, the Pope and Reagan read their formal greetings.

‘God Bless America’

The Pope’s best received line was his last.

“God bless America,” he said in his thick Polish accent, placing his emphasis on the word “bless.”

Then he was placed in a black limousine by the President, and off he went to start his journey across America. A motorcade of 16 police motorcycles and 26 vehicles escorted the Pope out of the airport.

The President, flashing a boyish thumbs-up sign out the rear window to the photographers, left a few minutes later. There were 34 motorcycles in his procession.

Within an hour the airport scene was one of abandonment--scattered paper cups, two empty airplanes and a small crew of stagehands. Greg Obrosk, a 28-year-old construction worker from Boca Raton, was part of the clean-up crew and, like the rest, he seemed in no hurry to get to work.

He had spent three weeks building the stage, with its pillars of real marble capped by brass globes. It was used all of an hour, and its demolition would take a full day.

Spruced Up for a Kiss

Shortly before the ceremony, Obrosk had been spotted in his green papal visit T-shirt, using a kitchen broom to sweep the red carpet rolled out for the Pope.

“I was mainly doing it because I was told that was where the Pope was supposed to kiss the ground,” he said. “I was surprised that he didn’t. I thought that was his thing.”

Vatican officials said it is customary for a Pope to kiss the ground of a nation only the first time he visits it.

Anyway, Obrosk said, he was going to keep a few feet of the carpet as a souvenir and, as for the broom, “I think we’ll paint it gold and hang it on the wall.”