Word: raisa
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Stylish and outspoken, Raisa Gorbachev is the antithesis of earlier Soviet First Ladies. The public rarely saw the wives of Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev, but Mrs. Gorbachev turns up by her husband's side at official functions. In the U.S.S.R., such high visibility is considered unseemly. Her taste for designer clothes strikes many of her comrades as ostentatious. Soviet wags have dubbed her the "Czarina...
Mikhail Gorbachev has been sensitive about the criticism of his wife. The only section of his interview with NBC Anchorman Tom Brokaw that was edited out of the Soviet broadcast last week concerned Raisa. Asked if he discussed national politics with his wife, Gorbachev replied, "We discuss everything." Censors excised Brokaw's follow-up, "Including Soviet affairs at the highest level?," and Gorbachev's terse retort, "I think I have answered that question in toto. We discuss everything...
Despite the similarities between the two glamorous, strong-willed and controversial First Ladies, Raisa and Nancy Reagan did not hit it off during their first meeting at the 1985 Geneva summit. Mrs. Reagan considered Mrs. Gorbachev a humorless and dogmatic Marxist ideologue. Friction between the two increased last year, when Raisa showed up at the Reykjavik summit after Nancy had announced she would be staying in Washington...
...stage has been set for a cool but correct meeting between the two women in Washington this week. Last month Mrs. Reagan invited Mrs. Gorbachev to a White House tea at 3:30 on Wednesday. After a two-week delay, Raisa finally accepted, then said she would prefer to visit Nancy in the morning so that she could attend an afternoon meeting between Gorbachev and U.S. journalists. Tea? Before noon? Nancy was incensed. Nevertheless, she agreed to meet with Raisa at 11:30 Wednesday morning. "It's a coffee now," sniffed a White House official, "and a tour...
Making matters worse, Raisa is scheduled to attend a Thursday gathering at the residence of Diplomat Averell Harriman's widow Pamela. Mrs. Harriman, an active Democrat, has invited such Reagan critics as the Washington Post's Katharine Graham and Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski. Commented a Reagan aide on the Nancy-Raisa relationship: "They're not exactly soul mates...