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...
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