Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 19, 1990 TAG: 9004190795
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: DANIEL HOWES HIGHER EDUCATION WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
And why not? Tech appears to be among the chosen.
The Soviet Foreign Ministry's chief spokesman isn't doing the kind of gig that takes him to the usual places: the Harvards, the Councils of Foreign Relations in New York and the Commonwealth Clubs of California.
We're talking Walla Walla, Wash.; Winona, Minn.; Millersville University near Lancaster, Pa. The out-of-the-way places, where big airports often are hours away and big newspapers even farther.
But there are Gerasimov's bigger dates, too - the Hartford, Conn., Chamber of Commerce, a conference or two with corporations considering joint ventures with the Soviets, a session with a disarmament group in Boston - the home base of Robert Walker, Gerasimov's fast-talking agent.
Gerasimov, a one-time correspondent in New York, is more interested in rubbing shoulders with the Janes and Bobs of middle America. And, when he's in Virginia, former Gov. Gerald Baliles, the sole politico to accept Tech's invitation for Tuesday's festivities.
The duo is avoiding, whenever possible, the clamoring media. NBC's "Today Show" wants an interview, Walker said, but no go.
After all, this guy deals with the salivating Moscow press corps almost every day, parrying fierce questioning on everything from Lithuania to perestroika to Raisa Gorbachev's relationships with Nancy Reagan and Barbara Bush.
Then, Blacksburg.
There was the private jet service from Albany, N.Y., where Gerasimov had met over breakfast with the New York State Business Council. Two Tech types - media man Larry Hincker and Joseph Wieczynski, a Russian history professor - took the "Hokie Bird" to meet Walker and his charge.
Current-events small talk didn't seem to interest Gerasimov, they reported. The flight, bumping through gray April skies, gave him the chance to catch a few minutes' sleep, a rarity on his 16-day tour.
Then Hincker mentioned "Freedom," William Safire's 1987 Civil War novel. He'd just finished the 1,000-page book describing, among other things, how the Confederacy's bid for secession baffled Abraham Lincoln and the union.
Gerasimov perked up, Hincker said, drawing parallels between Lincoln and Mikhail Gorbachev. The Russian sees his president as an earnest politician trying to hold together the union bequeathed by his Communist forbears - despite the restive Lithuanians and warring Armenians and Azeris.
Three hours later, following a terse news conference in which Gerasimov mentioned the Lincoln parallel a second time and chastised reporters for their obsession with Lithuania, Hincker's office got a call from The Grove, President James McComas' campus home.
Gerasimov wanted a copy of "Freedom." Hincker obliged, thanks to a telephone-book hunt by his staff.
There was the protocol. Officials fretted about what to do with two Soviet officials on campus at the same time. Aleksandr Krivov, deputy chairman of the committee on architecture and city planning, lectured on Soviet housing policy - not a topic usually afforded newsprint and air time by the media.
A call to Krivov's sponsor, Tech architect Frederick Krimgold, prompted a call to the Soviet Embassy in Washington. The Soviets' diplomatic compatriots assured Tech officials that even though Krivov technically outranked the better-known Gerasimov, Krivov's "a nice guy and he understands it's Gerasimov's show."
Sure enough, it was Gerasimov and Walker - each sporting a crossed Soviet and American flag pin on his lapel - who joined McComas in greeting guests at a pre-lecture dinner at The Grove.
There was the expected gift presentation: a compact disc recording of Tech's own Audubon Quartet and two books, one of them featuring pristine campus photos. Then the obligatory thanks, delivered from the bottom step of the McComas staircase.
Dinner was enjoyed atop chairs and sofas throughout the house, guests balancing their plates on their knees. Gerasimov and Krivov shared the sitting room couch with Baliles, who later sank into a deep, quiet conversation with Gerasimov.
"I've admired the way he handles himself on television," Baliles said Wednesday. "He's very adroit, . . . disarming, an engaging conversationalist."
They talked joint ventures, between Virginia companies and enterprises in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, the former governor reported. Gerasimov made a few helpful suggestions, "which I'll pass on."
"We talked about how important geography is for the history of nations and the development of trade patterns," Baliles said.
There was Peter the Great and his apparent misunderstanding of geography. In choosing his port, he chose to the north - now Leningrad - and not the south. A mistake, they agreed.
Then, show time. Buses hauled guests to campus as students, faculty and townspeople streamed into Burruss Hall Auditorium. This was a big show. So big that officials piped the lecture into the university cable system and onto a big-screen television in McBryde Hall.
Gerasimov began his litany: perestroika, admissions of failure and obsession with ideology, Gorbachev the Soviet Lincoln, the danger of a new dictatorship if the fragile reform coalition shakes apart.
Some 3,000 people greeted him warmly, enhancing the welcome that official Techdom had been extending the entire day. He even left with a Virginia Tech sweat shirt - extra large, with sewn-on letters.
One spectator berated Gerasimov and his comrades for denying the national aspirations of Lithuanians, only to be interrupted with, "This is a political statement, not a question." Applause.
"Perestroika is alive and well, though maybe a little unsure of itself," he said. "We shall overcome."
Then he returned to The Grove and went to sleep.
by CNB