Gorbachev’s Bay Area Blitz Met by Cheers--and Jeers

Tired but jovial, Mikhail S. Gorbachev ended a punishing seven-day North American tour Monday by experiencing the cheers of star-struck Stanford University students and the jeers of a smorgasbord of protesters.

Lithuanian, Korean, Armenian, Cambodian, Eritrean and assorted other ethnic demonstrators took to the streets--and, at two places, to the skies--at each stop to voice their grievances to the Soviet President. Airplanes flew over San Francisco and Stanford towing banners urging freedom for Soviet republics.

Unlike most demonstrators, who remained calm and well-mannered, students at Stanford enthusiastically mobbed the Soviet leader during a campus walkabout. Many chanted, “Gorby! Gorby!” Few could contain their admiration for him.

“Fabulous! He is a stud! I had chills the entire time,” said 20-year-old Michelle Leonetti. “We’re so lucky to grow up in this time!”

Graduate art student Matt Chansky, 24, said he was nearly overwhelmed when he offered Gorbachev a small abstract drawing as a gift.

“It was like this awesome presence coming toward me,” he recalled later. “I touched him, I touched his hand, and I could feel the power.”

Leonid Vanyan, a Russian graduate student in geophysics, was excited by the prospect that Gorbachev’s travels would speed reforms in his country.

“I hope that the more he will see how people live here and in other normal countries, maybe he will have more incentive to make life better in the Soviet Union,” he said.

Rana Bhadury, 20, an electrical engineering and economics student, was so taken by Gorbachev that for a moment he thought about literally giving him the shirt off his back--a bright red Stanford sweat shirt.

“I was afraid the Secret Service would shoot me if I tried,” he said.

Security was tight, but not that tight. For example, Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) and actress Morgan Fairchild somehow wandered into a part of the campus supposedly reserved for the official greeting party and reporters.

When someone asked him how they got there, Hayden joked, “Get a beautiful woman, put her in front of you, and walk.”

Minor glitches plagued the Gorbachevs’ day from the beginning.

Groggy after a busy day Sunday, the Gorbachevs slept late Monday, delaying by 45 minutes their breakfast meeting with former President Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy. The delay squeezed their schedule for the rest of the day.

“It was a grueling day (on Sunday),” White House Chief of Protocol Joseph Reed said. “Imagine it: Ending a four-day powerhouse summit, holding a press conference live in front of 100 million people, flying two hours to Minnesota, working there nonstop and flying another 3 1/2 hours to the other side of the country.”

When the Reagans arrived at 10 a.m., they were met at the front gate of the consul general’s house in the tony Pacific Heights district by Soviet Chief of Protocol Alexander Chernyshev and KGB Gen. Igor Generalov.

Less than 45 minutes later, the Reagans were walked out by the Gorbachevs. Ronald Reagan, in a gray pinstripe suit, held a box containing a small bronze medallion that Gorbachev gave him in honor of American aid during the Armenian earthquake disaster last year.

“We talked about the same things we talked about when these meetings began five years ago,” Reagan told reporters after the meeting. He declined to give details on his talk with the Soviet leader, except to say that they discussed Eastern Europe “frankly and openly.”

Gorbachev, pushing and squeezing his day at every stop, was able to make up much of the early delay by the time he left Stanford for a “power lunch” at San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel with 243 leading Western political and business leaders--only 14 of whom were women.

Outside the elegant old hotel, Armenians staged the day’s largest and most colorful demonstration, having brought 2,000 people from Los Angeles. Most were left to chant and wave banners behind police barricades half a block away, but some outflanked police by boarding the city’s celebrated cable cars and riding past the Fairmont waving Armenian flags and shouting slogans.

Other grievances aired ranged from homelessness in the United States to the Soviet Union’s retreat from communism. Protesters included Palestinians upset about the settlement of Soviet Jews on the West Bank and American Jews incensed by a resurgence of anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union.

For at least some of the thousands who thronged Nob Hill, the gathering was mostly a chance to see another celebrity.

“I’ve always wanted to see Gorbachev,” said Leilani Hines, a tourist from Honolulu holding a Nordstrom shopping bag in one hand and a disposable camera in the other. “He’s a real hero for me. He has true vision.”

“I have seen (Philippine President) Cory Aquino, George Bush and Jesse Jackson,” said Nob Hill resident John Reyes, 32. “He (Gorbachev) is No. 1--behind my mom.”

Although few in the crowd--protester or rubberneck--could actually watch Gorbachev as he slipped in a side entrance, the demonstrators were undaunted.

“Even if he won’t see us, he will hear about us,” said Meher Goujian, 22, of Glendale, gesturing toward television cameras. “It will make him hear our voices.”

Mary Arakelian of Los Angeles, a demonstration organizer with the Armenian National Committee, stressed that the Armenian demonstrators were not against Gorbachev himself but against his government’s policies in Armenia.

Other demonstrators with other ethnic groups did not always draw as fine a distinction.

“To Hell With Gorbachev, Butcher of Afghanistan” read one poster waved at the Soviet President’s chunky Zil limousine earlier in the day. Read another sign: “Gorbachev Is a Tyrant; Free Lithuania.”

Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) said Gorbachev is unworried about popularity. While flying with the Soviet leader to San Francisco, Cranston told him that a Los Angeles Times poll found that 7 of 10 Soviet citizens approve of his job performance. Gorbachev noted, “We have the same polls in the Soviet Union.”

The Soviet leader rates even higher in Northern California. A San Francisco Chronicle poll released Monday indicated that 83% of Bay Area residents have a “favorable” opinion of him--a fact that may make him long for San Francisco once he returns to the difficult politics of Moscow.

He gave a hint of that longing when he announced at the end of the day that his overburdened schedule would not let him visit the Golden Gate Bridge.

“You are fortunate to live here,” he said, defusing the potential civic slight with charm. “If I were your president, I would levy a tax on you.”

A short while later, as he boarded his jet at San Francisco International Airport, Gorbachev was serenaded with a Russian version of “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” sung by Slavyanka, a 35-man San Francisco folk chorus.

“This is not a joke,” said chorus member Corbin Lyday. “I translated it myself.”