Soviet, U.S. First Ladies to Do Lunch in Manhattan

When Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev visits New York next week, First Ladies Nancy Reagan and Raisa Gorbachev will have lunch Wednesday, renewing an acquaintance marked by occasional friction in their past meetings in Geneva, Washington and Moscow.

Soviet sources indicated that Mrs. Gorbachev also is interested in accompanying her husband to museums and talks with intellectuals. A Soviet source said she would also like to visit Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s department stores.

“I’m looking forward to seeing her again,” Nancy Reagan said in a statement released by her press secretary, Elaine Crispen.

Marcela Perez de Cuellar, wife of the U.N. secretary general, will host a luncheon at her Sutton Place townhouse on the East Side of Manhattan for about 12 women, including Mrs. Gorbachev, Mrs. Reagan, Barbara Bush, wife of President-elect George Bush, and Helena Shultz, wife of Secretary of State George P. Shultz.

The Soviet First Lady had been extremely talkative during earlier encounters with Nancy Reagan, peppering her with questions during a White House tour, chatting with the media and regaling the President with information about Marxist doctrine.

She had also replied late to Mrs. Reagan’s invitation to tour the White House, a controversial incident that was widely reported in the American media. In an interview with The Times in October, Mrs. Reagan was asked if she felt that the Soviet First Lady had been rude.

“Well, by our standards, I suppose, yes,” she said. “Now, by her standards, it might not be. It’s just coming from two completely different cultures and trying to get together for the first time and maybe one not understanding how the other works. I think there was too much attention paid about that whole thing.”

The two women exchanged letters after their last meeting in Moscow last May. Mrs. Gorbachev’s letter said “how nice it was to have had us there, and I hope we meet again--something to that effect. I can’t now remember what the letter said,” Mrs. Reagan said last month.

Mrs. Bush talked with Mrs. Gorbachev at three events during the Gorbachevs’ previous Washington visit.

“I think all three occasions were very cordial meetings,” said Sondra Haley, Mrs. Bush’s spokeswoman. “They (the Gorbachevs) really were meeting more with the Reagans at the time.”