From Red to Green

WHAT DO YOU DO FOR AN ENCORE AFTER ENDING THE cold war and reversing the arms race? How about saving the planet? That's the latest assignment for Mikhail Gorbachev, having assumed the presidency of the International Green Cross, a new environmental organization that hopes to do for man-made disasters what the Red Cross does for the natural kind.

The former Soviet President made the transition to environmental pitchman in Kyoto, Japan, at a ceremony sponsored by the New York City-based Global Forum and attended by such political and spiritual luminaries as former U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar and Mother Teresa. Now that he is a full-time Green, Gorbachev may have a lot to atone for. The Soviet Union committed a long string of environmental outrages during his watch, including the world's worst nuclear accident at Chernobyl.