THE WASHINGTON SUMMIT : REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK : A New Street Game in Washington: Waiting for Gorby

The clusters of onlookers are thickening on the streets leading to the White House, now that almost everyone knows Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev likes to stop his limousine now and then to shake the hands of a few Americans.

Police halted traffic and pushed one group of tourists and office workers back on the northeast corner of 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue at 1 p.m. Friday just before Gorbachev and his motorcade left the White House after a morning meeting with President Bush. Two office workers in short-sleeved white shirts came upon the crowd and asked, “Who are you waiting for?”

“Mister Gorbo is coming by,” they were told. So the office workers waited, too.

A host of motorcycled police roared by, and the onlookers began to rise on tip-toe and crane their necks for the best view.

“There he is,” someone called out.

An elongated Soviet Zil limousine soon rolled past, a red hammer-and-sickle flag flapping near a front window and a grinning Gorbachev waving from a back window. The spectators applauded and whistled and waved and shouted in good fun.

“You see,” a father, whose car had been stopped at the corner about 10 minutes before the Gorbachev motorcade arrived, told his children, “timing is everything. It’s not every day you see the president of Russia. Come on, gang, let’s go.”

The family clambered back into the car and motored onward as soon as the police removed their barriers.

But their timing was still a bit off. Gorbachev, it turned out, had stopped his limousine a block to the north and had shaken the hands of the squealing, delighted onlookers he chanced to find there.

So eager was the crowd to reach the Soviet president that shoving matches broke out between his tense security team and the public.

Gorbachev had pushed his way past the linked-arms security cordon that his bodyguards and police tried to form and shook some hands in the crowd along one side of the street. But when he crossed to the other side, the crowd there surged toward him with such force that the security men closed ranks and pushed people back. They ignored Gorbachev’s hand-signals to let him through.

He managed a few long-reach handshakes, threw up his hands in resignation and got back into his limousine.

Although everyone expected Americans of Baltic--and especially Lithuanian--descent to protest Soviet policies in the Baltic countries during the summit, some of the other protests here have been somewhat surprising.

At Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House, Friday seemed to be Asian protest day. Vietnamese-Americans demanded democracy in Vietnam, Korean-Americans called for the unification of North and South Korea, and--in a kind of pox on both houses--the New Testament Church of Taiwan protested against both autocracy and democracy. Both systems of government, the members of the church insisted, were human creations, not divine. The disciples, carrying signs in both English and Spanish, called for a return to Zion.

Although absent from Lafayette Park, the Baltic peoples were not silent Friday. About 1,500 Baltic-Americans, many wearing national dress, assembled on the steps of the Capitol and called for President Bush to refuse most-favored-nation status to the Soviet Union and grant it instead to Lithuania.

But a street protest was too old-fashioned for one Lithuanian-American organization.

It bought television time during the summit, airing a commercial that began, “Mr. Gorbachev, you’re no Josef Stalin, but. . . . “ And then it listed what it described as Lithuania’s grievances at the hands of Gorbachev.

The request to room service at the Madison Hotel seemed simple enough--breakfast cereal for Marshal Sergei F. Akhromeyev, Gorbachev’s military adviser and a member of the Soviet delegation at the summit.

But something had been lost in translation. The marshal, an aide explained after a waiter brought a selection of little boxes of American cereals, did not want corn flakes or bran flakes or anything that was sugar-coated. What he wanted was hot kasha , a kind of Russian porridge.

With the request clarified, the cooks began a search of the Madison kitchen, came up with a box of oatmeal, which was pronounced “close enough,” and a bowl of steaming Amerikanskaya kasha was sent up to the marshal.

Throughout the summit, it has been nearly impossible to get through to the regular telephones at the Soviet Embassy in Washington. A caller usually hears either a busy signal or endless ringing.

Even Soviet officials don’t know how to connect. In the Soviet office in the summit press center, three harried Soviet officials with damp brows have been trying for days to relay questions and interview requests to the embassy, with little result.

“I’ve been trying to get through to ask a simple question for more than an hour,” one Soviet press aide complained, “but so far no reply.”

“Do you have the list of guests for the dinner at the Soviet Embassy tonight?” an American reporter asked Friday afternoon.

“Not yet,” he replied.

“When will you get it?” the reporter persisted.

“I don’t know,” he said, sighing and tipping back his chair.

“Will you get it at all?” she asked finally.

“Maybe,” he said, and threw up his hands.

As the reporter stalked off in a huff, he turned to a colleague and asked, “ What other answer can I give her?”