New, Improved Yeltsin to Arrive in U.S. Today : Diplomacy: The former thorn in Gorbachev’s side is coming in his own plane, and he’s carrying his own message.

America, meet Boris Yeltsin--the new and improved Boris Yeltsin, that is.

The politician who arrives in Washington today for his first foreign trip as president of the Russian Federation is a very different one from the opposition gadfly who slammed Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and whose erratic behavior raised a brouhaha when he visited the United States in 1989.

Now, Yeltsin is flying in on his own chartered plane as a chief of state, the first popularly elected leader in Russia’s history, the head of a vast, rich republic of 147 million--and a figure worthy of being received in the White House by President Bush.

Yeltsin, 60, is also carrying a powerful, constructive message, one tailored to assuage the doubts of American policy-makers who have long hesitated to accord him or other leaders of the Soviet Union’s 15 constitutent republics much recognition for fear of undercutting Gorbachev.

Andrei Kozyrev, Russia’s foreign minister, said Monday that Yeltsin will try to persuade his American hosts that “the equation for stability in Russia and the Soviet Union is not the status quo.”

Rather, Kozyrev said, “it is the dynamic change that grew out of what was initiated by Gorbachev’s perestroika, and now Gorbachev . . . will find a very strong ally and partner in Yeltsin and Democratic Russia (Yeltsin’s political group). They are the hope for stability.”

Gorbachev and Yeltsin, rivals since the late 1980s, put an apparent end to their hostilities when they signed a broad power-sharing agreement in April. Yeltsin’s four-day trip to Washington and New York reflects in part the budding cooperation between the Kremlin and the Russian Federation.

Unlike his last trip, this visit has the blessing of the Soviet Foreign Ministry, which helped set it up.

“We hope this visit will be useful for superpower relations,” ministry spokesman Vitaly I. Churkin said amiably on Monday. “We hope it will allow for serious discussions between the Soviet Union and the U.S. on two levels, on the (national) and republic level.”

Kozyrev emphasized that although Yeltsin is willing to work together with the Kremlin, he also wants to win the Russian Federation the recognition it deserves.

“It is not that we want to pull the rug out from under Gorbachev or take his seat, but we want to have our own proper place,” he said. “We are speaking for the heartland of the Soviet Union. Democratic Russia is also the backbone and probably the only hope for reform.”

Yeltsin wants to open up direct lines of communication with the U.S. leadership, Kozyrev said, and he hopes the Bush Administration will give him his full due.

“We hope there will be a better understanding of the president as the flesh and blood of the people,” he said. “In becoming president, Yeltsin has reached a new political maturity, and this is also important--that the embodiment of democracy that Yeltsin represents as the president-elect will find its place in the world outside.”

Yeltsin must make the trip count if he wants to dispel the image he has developed on other foreign trips as rough, confrontational and impolite by unexpectedly canceling planned visits and verbally butting heads with his hosts.

His American visit in autumn, 1989, caused a scandal when Pravda, the Communist Party newspaper, reprinted an article from an Italian newspaper accusing Yeltsin of drinking and shopping his way through the United States, and Soviet television showed him speaking with a slurred voice. Pravda later published a retraction, but the damage to his reputation was done.

Kozyrev acknowledged that Yeltsin has hit some rough spots in foreign trips, but he blamed the problems largely on the lack of information Yeltsin had when he set out.

When Gorbachev went to Japan this spring, Kozyrev said, he performed admirably, in large part because he had a Foreign Ministry of 10,000 employees to prepare and support him.

The Russian Federation Foreign Ministry is trying to develop a foreign service but currently has a mere 40 diplomats on its staff.

For this trip, Kozyrev said, “I’m keeping my fingers crossed.”

Yeltsin must get the most out of this visit because it will be his last for at least three months. He has pledged that upon his return, he will concentrate on domestic affairs, particularly the radical economic reforms he launched but had trouble implementing.

Kozyrev said that Yeltsin chose America for his sole post-election trip because it is clearly the dominant power in the Western world.

“This is the first time in the history of Russia that the people chose to seek the way out of a deep crisis not with the iron hand of a dictator but with free and fair elections,” he said. “We would like Americans to understand better what is happening.”