Back on The Road Again

In Belgrade, the capital, he repeatedly waded into excited crowds with Wife Raisa to shake hands and shout good wishes amid cries of "Mikhail! Mikhail!" In the northern city of Ljubljana, he toured a high-tech electronics plant that has a product line including robots used by U.S. automobile manufacturers. In the Adriatic resort of Dubrovnik, he strolled the Stradun, the city's marble-paved pedestrian thoroughfare, and was again greeted by cheering spectators.

Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev was on the road again last week, this time bringing his trademark style of personal diplomacy to Yugoslavia, a nonaligned Communist country. His primary goal during the five-day trip was to improve relations with Yugoslavia, which was cast out of the Soviet orbit by Joseph Stalin in 1948 for taking an independent political line. In a speech to the National Assembly, Gorbachev apologized for the "great harm" caused by Stalin's "unfounded accusations" of disloyalty against Josip Broz Tito, Yugoslavia's longtime leader, who died in 1980.

Yugoslavia's collective leadership is faced with a faltering economy and growing ethnic tensions, problems that also confront Gorbachev at home. Nonetheless, while he constantly referred to his principles of perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness), Gorbachev refrained from suggesting that Yugoslavs adopt Soviet policies. A communique issued at the visit's end affirmed the right of the two nations to pursue "different paths of socialist development."