Public Relations: Comandante in mufti

Standing awkwardly behind a microphone in a new suit and tie, he looked like a timid substitute teacher or possibly a computer whiz before a job interview -anything but what he really was: the uncompromising leader of Nicaragua's pro-Marxist Sandinista regime. Comandante Daniel Ortega Saavedra, who is running in his government's first presidential elections on Nov. 4, spent the past two weeks stumping across the U.S. Accompanied by his wife and an entourage of eleven Nicaraguan officials and ten Secret Service men, Ortega was attempting to woo Americans away from President Reagan's anti-Sandinista stance.

To soften the comandante's stern image, Nicaragua's New York-based public affairs consultant coaxed Ortega out of his customary green fatigues and into preppie tweeds. The revolutionary leader wowed Manhattan intellectuals at the august New York Athletic Club, elicited impassioned shouts from students at Harvard, was feted by civil rights leaders in Atlanta and was lionized by screen stars at a Beverly Hills lawn party. An internal Sandinista memo brashly stated the visitor's goal as "literally invading the U.S. media."