L.A. Rolling Out Welcome Mat for Visit by Mandela : South Africa: The foe of apartheid has captured the imagination of tens of thousands. He can probably expect a warm welcome in the Southland.

From the proudly gritty streets of Harlem to the lawns of the White House, Nelson Mandela, who arrives today in Los Angeles, has overcome logistic chaos to charm his admirers and, for the most part, drown out his detractors.

Arriving at the penultimate stop of his 12-day, eight-city tour, Mandela has been hailed as a powerful hero, an inspiration for youth, a Moses leading his people to the promised land. And he has troubled those uneasy over his defense of armed struggle and support for figures such as Yasser Arafat and Fidel Castro.

Whatever the reaction, Mandela has clearly captured the imagination of tens of thousands of people yearning for a dream. And though some of the magic is starting to wear thin with Mandela tiring and controversy swirling, the African National Congress deputy president can probably expect a similar outpouring of emotional attention in Los Angeles.

“We have leaders, but his caliber is different,” said Robert King, 48, a black bricklayer who took the day off to watch Mandela drive through the front gates of the White House. “You don’t find a greater man, one who has suffered so, who had to wait until his life was almost over, to speak out like this.”

Black children outside Boston cheered as he passed in a motorcade. Professionals in Atlanta, black and white, skipped work to see him. Pinstriped Fortune 500 executives in New York rushed to shake his hand. Republican congressmen rose to join Democrats in a standing ovation on Capitol Hill.

And in Los Angeles, Hollywood’s stars, teens from South-Central and City Hall politicos will compete for their moment to bask in Mandela’s limelight.

What is striking is that one man, a revolutionary who spent almost half his life in a prison cell for his role in trying to overthrow his government, has generated such similar reaction from such dissimilar folks.

From city to city, event to event, Mandela’s message rarely changes: He thanks America for its support in the fight against apartheid in South Africa, and he asks for more support. Angelenos can expect to hear it again.

What does change is the way the message is accepted and perceived--an interpretation often filtered by the experiences and expectations of the listener.

To a black mother from Brooklyn, Mandela is fighting for a better world for her children. To a white graduate student in Boston, Mandela is calling for racial harmony. Some hear a call to arms, others hear a plea for peace. Still others hear rhetoric tinted with communism.

“In the political world, there are so many politicians who are here today, tomorrow they’ve changed their mind,” said Anita Irick, 42, who lives in a Washington suburb and works for a minority business development agency.

“Mandela hasn’t changed his principles,” Irick said. “How often do you see that?”

“Mandela is a great role model for black children,” said Theodore Scott, a black teacher at an Atlanta middle school. “White America has lots of role models, but black America needs more. Here’s a black man willing to stand up for what’s right, willing to make sacrifices.”

“It is unfortunate that he has to speak to a black audience in one place, and a white audience in another place,” Maureen McGing, a Boston claims examiner, said, pointing to Mandela’s predominantly black crowd at a school in Roxbury, Mass., and the predominantly white crowd sitting on the Charles River Esplanade for a Mandela concert. “His message is more universal; it shouldn’t be perceived as black and white.”

It is what Mandela symbolizes that transcends--perhaps obscures--his words. His 27-year confinement in a South African jail converted him into a symbol of hope for struggling black workers, of perseverance for whites and blacks looking for purpose, of potential change in a country whose apartheid regime much of America sees as an ugly blemish on the world countenance.

“He symbolizes freedom,” said Kimberly Eason, an 18-year-old senior at the mostly black Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn. “He can show there is a way out.”

And, in some circles, particularly on the right, Mandela is a symbol of something dangerous.

“In our zeal to genuflect before this media personality, we have allowed hero worship to replace reality,” Rep. William Dannemeyer (R-Calif.) told Congress before he boycotted Mandela’s Capitol Hill appearance.

“Everywhere we turn, we see ANC support for every virulently anti-American outfit there is, spewing forth hatred and terrorism over the globe,” he said. “Why are we celebrating the unrepentant, unreconstructed rantings of a Marxist terrorist?”

In Miami, Cuban-Americans, outraged at Mandela’s support for Castro, demonstrated outside Mandela’s speech before a labor convention Thursday and scuffled with black supporters of Mandela.

Such protests are not expected in Los Angeles, where the Latino community tends to be less conservative than in Miami. Jewish groups in Los Angeles, as in Miami and New York, disapprove of some of Mandela’s positions, and Jewish Defense League head Irv Rubin asked that Mandela be denied the key to the city. The request was ignored and no organized protests are expected.

Mandela has attracted huge crowds despite one of the most logistically tangled tours in recent memory. Organizers said they had very little time to arrange his whirlwind schedule for a visit that had many of the trappings of a head-of-state visit.

The schedule has changed constantly, events have been eliminated only to be added again later, and most everything has started late. Los Angeles was no exception: At 5 p.m. Thursday City Hall officials announced that all morning events--and perhaps some in the evening-- had been pushed back at least one hour because Mandela was scheduled to arrive late.

Disorganization has kept participants and reporters alike guessing constantly.

“Barnum and Bailey would have been easier,” grumbled one State Department security agent, shaking his head as he rode up and down the elevators at the Madison Hotel in Washington, where Mandela stayed.

Mandela has somehow inspired admirers despite the large distance that security agents maintain between him and real people.

Mandela, with few exceptions, has been careful to avoid touching on domestic issues. While black youth may find in Mandela the strength that somehow helps them overcome their own problems, Mandela deliberately does not address the problems facing this country’s black youth in concrete terms.

Asked at a crowded news conference at the Madison Hotel to comment on blacks being held in U.S. jails, Mandela said he could only comment on his own 27-year imprisonment--and moved on to the next question.

“It would not be proper for me to address the issues that are tearing this society apart,” Mandela told Ted Koppel during an appearance on “Nightline.”

Mandela will leave the United States after having raised substantial money and having received political support for his primary goal, maintaining sanctions against the white-minority government of South Africa. But it remains to be seen whether Mandela’s time in this country will have any lasting effect on the American psyche.