GORBACHEV TO VISIT VA. FOR JEFFERSON'S BIRTHDAY

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 24, 1993                   TAG: 9303240183
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Mark Morrison
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
GORBACHEV TO VISIT VA. FOR JEFFERSON'S BIRTHDAY
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev is scheduled to celebrate Thomas Jefferson's 250th birthday next month with visits to the University of Virginia, Monticello and Jefferson's Bedford County retreat, Poplar Forest.
Gorbachev will visit the landmarks on April 13, Jefferson's 250th birthday. At UVa, he is scheduled to give a public lecture, followed by a visit to Jefferson's home at Monticello.
That same week, Gorbachev also is scheduled to make two speeches in Richmond.
At Poplar Forest, in the Forest section of Bedford County, Gorbachev will speak at a private dinner for about 250 invited guests who have contributed to the retreat's restoration.
"It'll be his perspective on Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Jefferson's ideas," explained Lynn Beebe, executive director of the Corporation for Jefferson's Poplar Forest.
Beebe said Gorbachev also will tour the Poplar Forest home, which Jefferson designed and built. He visited the retreat several times a year, and wrote much of his only published book, "Notes on the State of Virginia," there.
Gorbachev will be the first head of state to visit Poplar Forest since Jefferson's lifetime. "The board wanted to have a leading figure," Beebe said.
The former leader of the Soviet Union will make his dinner address in a tent set up on the lawn outside the Poplar Forest home. Beebe said his remarks will be translated by an interpreter.
Invitations to the event already have been mailed out, she said.
Poplar Forest was sold by Jefferson's grandson and then used as a private residence by several families through 1984, when the Corporation for Jefferson's Poplar Forest was formed to purchase and preserve the retreat.
The group is restoring the home to Jefferson's original design. It was altered considerably following a fire in the 1840s and when it was modernized in this century.
Beebe said the current crisis in Russia should not interfere with Gorbachev's visit. "It's certainly theoretically possible, but his representative assures us he's coming."

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB