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His travels abroad have given Gorbachev more contact with the world outside the Soviet Union than most Politburo members have had. During a two-week tour of Canada in May 1983, Gorbachev impressed officials with his straightforward, modest approach and his grasp of agricultural statistics. "Unlike other Soviet figures, he didn't need a brief," says a high-level Canadian official. "He was a quick learner." At one point, then Canadian Agriculture Minister Eugene Whelan bluntly told Gorbachev that he hoped the Soviets would continue their system, because "as long as you do, you will remain inefficient and will be the best market Canada could have." The translators, recalls a Whelan aide, were shocked, but Gorbachev enjoyed the exchange.
Gorbachev's trip to Britain was even more successful in putting a human face on the Soviet leadership. His appetite for technical matters became obvious during his tour of an agricultural research center and an auto factory. During nearly 3 1/2 hours of talks with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Gorbachev spoke knowledgeably about arms control and East-West issues. Observed a Foreign Office diplomat: "It's nice to find a Soviet politician whose face moves. Even when he scowls, you know where you stand."
Raisa Gorbachev made almost as big a hit in London as her husband. A former student of philosophy at Moscow State University, the chic and slender Mrs. Gorbachev showed up at one reception wearing a white satin evening dress and a pair of gold lame sandals. Photographers were so captivated by her that they presented her with a bouquet when she left. Mrs. Gorbachev and her future husband met as students in the 1950s. Their daughter, who is believed to be in her late 20s, and son-in-law reportedly are both doctors.
In some ways Gorbachev owes his rise to hometown connections. The future Soviet leader was born in 1931 in the fertile Stavropol region of southern Russia, where Yuri Andropov also was born and where Mikhail Suslov, the country's leading ideologist until his death in January 1982, had worked for several years. Gorbachev's first job was driving a tractor. In 1950 he made a significant leap forward by gaining entrance to Moscow State University. Admission is notoriously hard to win; unless a student is exceptionally talented, he needs family influence to enter. The farm boy apparently got his boost from a good work record and from local party officials who had been impressed by the ambitious youth.
Gorbachev joined the Communist Party in 1952, while he was still in school. Lev Yudovich, a fellow student who knew Gorbachev slightly, remembers him as a "gray," or average, student who enjoyed slapping backs as much as hitting the books. "He didn't have a lot of original ideas," recalls Yudovich, who left the Soviet Union in 1977 and now teaches at the U.S. Army Russian Institute in West Germany. "But he made an effort to be everybody's buddy." Gorbachev soon was devoting as much time to party activities as to his studies. After graduating with a law degree in 1955, he decided on a career as a party professional. He returned to Stavropol, where he specialized in running collective farms. In 1970, at age 39, he was named first secretary of the regional party organization.