Rotary’s Expansion in Europe: Promise, Problems : Service organizations: Clubs are being created in the former Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union, but some are concerned about the inclusion of communist members.

Days after Soviet troops killed civilians in the streets of Riga in Latvia, the country’s president, Anatolijs Gorbunovs, went on television to explain why the assault had been necessary. On his lapel was a small gold cog about the size of a button that means he is a member, albeit honorary, of the Rotary Club.

Rotary member Lennart Arfwidsson, watching the broadcast from his home across the Baltic Sea in Sweden, felt shame. “Should we wait for more democracy before we continue to open clubs?” he asked a group of Rotarians from 24 countries meeting in Anaheim this week.

As economies and political systems fail in countries that once embraced communism, business people in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union are hunting for basic instructions on setting up shop, capitalist-style. The Rotary, which is based in Evanston, Ill., is channeling management and entrepreneurial advice through its 23 clubs in Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, the former East Germany and the Soviet Union. In the same region, 24 more clubs have formed and are awaiting charters.

But there have been problems for 86-year-old Rotary International, which prides itself on selecting one leader with high ethics from each industry or profession for each club. Its motto is “service above self.”

“How to find the right members, the best personalities, the best leaders?” asked Arfwidsson in heavily accented English. “Sometimes the best qualification to become a leader (in these countries) was to be a member of the Communist Party.”

Suspicions hardened by the Cold War are difficult to overcome, which makes the Rotary more effective than governments in solving problems in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, said Royce Abbey, a former window-blinds manufacturer from Melbourne, Australia, and past president of Rotary International.

“We think we’re playing a major role,” Abbey said in an earlier interview. “These people don’t accept government help, but they don’t see us as any threat.”

Providing housing for the aged in Irkutsk in Siberia, clothing for the poor in Moscow, office machinery for Estonia, wheelchairs for Poland and open-heart surgeons for Hungary are programs sponsored by the Rotary in the 20 months since it began working in those areas. Abbey said Polish clubs are also asking Western clubs for ideas on management training, employee relations and educational scholarships. Rotarians from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union did not attend the Anaheim meeting, because their clubs are too new to have elected a representative to attend.

The meeting is the Rotary’s 74th international assembly, and it is the first such gathering in Anaheim. The purpose is to coordinate Rotary activities in 172 nations. The spoked cog--to remind Rotarians they are part of a larger world--is displayed throughout the Anaheim Hilton and Towers to welcome the 1,500 guests: on banners and coat buttons, stationery and placards.

The annual assembly is a prelude to the 1.1-million-member club’s convention in June in Mexico City. This meeting, which began Friday and runs through the end of this week, purports to be as serious as the convention is lighthearted: Rotarians will discuss deforestation along the Amazon, global warming, and expansion into Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and, maybe, Cuba, which the group is considering now.

But there is a touch of fun to this meeting as well, as some Rotarians proved by pinning tiny Mickey Mouse ears to their plastic name tags.

The Rotarians at this meeting are men; any women are guests or staff. Although U.S. courts ordered the organization to begin accepting women four years ago, no woman has worked her way up the ranks far enough to be elected a governor, who represents an average of 50 clubs at international meetings. Of the 27,000 female Rotarians, 24,600 are Americans and Canadians.

The Eastern European clubs have not been able to elect a governor either because they are so new--or just restarted--and it takes time for members to work their way up the ranks. Rotary Clubs thrived in Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia before communist takeovers. Czech President Vaclav Havel’s father was president of the Prague Rotary Club. In Cuba, a main street through Havana is named Rotary Avenue.

The Rotary is generally absent in communist countries because without the ability to assemble and speak freely, the clubs would be meaningless.

The response to the new openness has been, at times, overwhelming. Rotarian William Huntley, an Englishman who moderated the Sunday afternoon discussion of Rotary expansion in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, said a newly opened club in Warsaw is receiving more than 25,000 letters a year with offers of assistance from fellow Rotarians and an average of 40 visitors per meeting. He urged Rotarians to coordinate such efforts so that these new clubs are not inundated.

The Orange County Rotary district, which has 3,100 members, is planning to send young non-Rotarian professionals from the area to Poland for up to six weeks, then invite their Polish counterparts to stay here in Rotarians’ homes. The intent is to have journalists, hospital workers, lawyers and others see how things are done in each other’s countries.

The Anaheim Rotary Club is co-sponsoring a new club in Gorzow, Poland, together with a club in Falsterbo, Sweden, said member Clayton (Gene) Scarbrough, an Anaheim citrus grower. Sponsors approve members, instruct the new club and sometimes offer financial help. He said his club is letting the Swedish group handle selection of the Polish club’s new members, but he is not worried about any communist affiliations of prospective members.

“We want them to be the leaders of the country, and it’s awful hard to get a good cross-section without including communists,” he said.