May 1990

By Vincent Del Giudice

WASHINGTON (UPI) — Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, saying ‘I feel really at home,’ popped out of his armored limousine Thursday and pressed the flesh with a cheering rush-hour throng lining the street as he left the White House.

‘It’s on my camera! I’ve got a whole roll of him,’ gushed Charlena Grimes, a visitor from Pullman, Wash. ‘How can you have chills when it’s so hot? My knees are weak! I’ve got to call my father — he’s 82 years old!’

Police in patrol cars leading the long motorcade to the Soviet Embassy jammed on their brakes and screeched in reverse when Gorbachev’s jet black Zil limousine halted at the corner of 15th Street and Pennsylvania Avenues at the height of the evening rush hour.

Through his interpreter, Gorbachev said, ‘Looking at the Americans, I feel really at home. I feel that your people and people everywhere want the good life.

‘People want to be confident of their tomorrows. They want to protect what best they have … they want dignity and the rest is not too important. Good luck.’

Helmeted officers on motorcycles, Secret Service agents and visibly stunned Soviet body guards struggled in vain to hold back the crowd at the major intersection across from the U.S. Treasury.

‘It was a pretty dramatic moment,’ said Bill Johnson, a portfolio manager who works nearby. ‘He turned the corner with the window down. It only took a few seconds for him to pop out of the limousine and he made a beeline to the corner.’

‘He basically said he had a big mission, a big agenda, and a lot of things to get done,’ Johnson said. ‘I was having a hard time standing upright. People were pushing from behind.’

There was no doubt Gorbachev was a long way from the Soviet Union, where a series of domestic problems are threatening his presidency, and a crowd of Muscovites might resemble a mob more than a pep rally.

‘I guess he needs some adoration because he’s not getting it in his own country,’ said Lynn Maher, a California resident in town as a coach for the national spelling bee.

Many people ran two blocks to get a glimpse of the Soviet leader, some leaping from their cars stopped nearby.

‘He cleared the police away and was very friendly,’ said Lucy Mucherman, 33, a White House worker on her way to meet friends at a nearby tavern. ‘He wanted to meet the Americans.’

‘He didn’t say anything in English,’ added Chris Goodwin, 22, of Bethesda, Md.

But it didn’t matter.

The usually tired stream of workers, heading home after spending a brilliant spring day at the office, burst into appaluse and many cheered, ‘Gorby! Gorby!’ and howled, ‘Woooo!’

‘I’m so shocked I can hardly talk!’ giggled H.A. Ryaciotaki-Boussalis, a professor of engineering from California State University at Los Angeles.

After shaking hands at one corner, the beaming Gorbachev, flanked by his entourage including the also-smiling Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, crossed 15th Street to press more flesh.

‘He saw everybody waving and he couldn’t resist,’ said Mark Braswell, a government lawyer who works nearby. ‘He was just working the crowd like a politician.’

One person in the throng kept yelling about El Salvador and there was a shout of ‘Free South Africa.’But the Soviet leader paid no attention.

Gorbachev ‘said the Soviet Union wanted to improve relations with the United States,’ reported Peter Ghavami of Washington, who said he shook Gorbachev’s hand. ‘I was mightily impressed.’

The foray into the crowd was not a first for the Soviet leader. During his December 1987 visit to Washington, he stopped his limousine on posh Connecticut Avenue and dived into a midday crowd of stunned pedestrians.