Raisa Gorbachev

Raisa Gorbachev, wife of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, visited the former Nazi death camp at Auschwitz in southern Poland today, the Polish news agency PAP reported. She was accompanied by Barbara Jaruzelski, wife of Polish leader Wojciech Jaruzelski.

Barbara Bush took charge at an exclusive U.N. luncheon today for Raisa Gorbachev and Nancy Reagan, putting everyone at ease with her good humor and jokes. "How do you say 'cheese' in Russian?" Barbara Bush, the wife of President-elect George Bush, quipped as the three women stood for a formal picture with Marcela Perez de Cuellar at her posh East Side townhouse. Barbara Bush, standing next to the Soviet first lady, seemed intent on defusing any problems at the gathering, the last for the U.S.

Raisa Gorbachev, the wife of former Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, is seriously ill in a German hospital, a spokesman for the private Gorbachev Foundation said. Raisa Gorbachev, 67, is being treated in Muenster, Germany, for a "serious blood disease," spokesman Vladimir Polyakov said. He declined to elaborate about the nature of the disease or Gorbachev's prognosis. Gorbachev has been in the hospital since July 25.

President Mikhail S. Gorbachev said Sunday his wife, Raisa, is recovering after a "very bad bout"--apparently of nerves--during last month's attempted coup d'etat . An emotional Gorbachev struggled for words and repeated himself as he described her condition in an interview on Soviet television and the Cable News Network. "Everything is normal, everything is normal. But it will take time, it will take time," he said.

First Lady Nancy Reagan says cultural differences may account for her frosty relations with Raisa Gorbachev, wife of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev. Asked whether she found Mrs. Gorbachev to be rude, Mrs. Reagan replied: "By our standards, I suppose, yes. Now, by her standards, it might not be. " . . . It's just coming from two completely different cultures and trying to get together for the first time and maybe one not understanding how the other works."

Raisa Gorbachev was a big hit Wednesday at the Tsukiji, Japan's largest fish market, where one enraptured stall owner presented her with a token of his esteem--a 6 1/2-pound flounder. A KGB agent slung the fish, in a plastic bag, over his shoulder as the Soviet leader's wife strolled among mounds of tuna, crab and shrimp. "She came across as a very normal kind of person," one approving fishmonger said. She even tasted some squid.

To resounding organ music, Raisa Gorbachev entered St. Paul's Cathedral today to survey a monument to Christianity in the heart of London. Elegant in a mauve leather coat, her collar turned up against the cold, Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev's wife overstayed a tight schedule to linger inside the vast cathedral, Sir Christopher Wren's 17th-Century masterpiece.