Glasnost meets apartheid.

AMONG THE CHANGES of Soviet direction under Mikhail Gorbachev is a foreign initiative of great and proximate significance. At an initially secret meeting of academics in Surrey, England, Soviet and South African participants came together, under the chairmanship of a distinguished British diplomat, Sir John Killick. Implicitly, though not quite explicitly, the Soviet delegation, led by ex-President Gromyko's son, Anatoly, disowned the African National Congress (ANC), longtime terrorist protege of the Soviet Union. In evidently frank exchanges, the Soviets agreed with the South Africans that South Africa's political and constitutional problems could best be solved by a round-table conference of all interested parties. In practice, this would place the ANC on an equal footing with, say, Chief Buthelezi's Inkatha party.

As if to underline this change, ANC leader Oliver Tambo was virtually snubbed on a coincident visit to Moscow. Last time round, in 1986, he had been received with honor by Gorbachev himself, this time, he had to content himself with Valentin Falin, head of the International Department.

Sir John Killick is a clear-headed, outspoken, atypical diplomat. He was personally involved in the famous mass expulsion of 105 Soviet spies from Britain in 1971, on his appointment as ambassador to the USSR. No more skeptical student of the Soviet reality could be imagined. In a long conversation with him after the Surrey meeting, he told me he was convinced that the demotion of the ANC was indeed a major change.

There are further details of interest. As director of the Soviet Africa Institute, the younger Gromyko is an ideological descendant of the late Professor Ivan Potekhin, who pioneered Soviet studies of Africa in the 1950s. The point to note is that such "institutes," in the Soviet Union, are arms of the International Department of the Central Committee, i.e., weapons in the cold war. (The better known Institute for the Study of the United States is another example.)

As for the ANC, whose best known leader is Nelson Mandela, it has long been conterminous with the South African Communist Party. If Moscow's demotion of the ANC is for real, this is indeed a far-reaching change.

In strategic terms, it has to be seen in the context of the Angola-Namibia settlement (and the retreat from Afghanistan). Here, however, a note of caution is needed. Not all the thousands of Cuban troops being repatriated from Angola are in fact returning to their patria. There are intriguing reports that some of them are being regrouped in Panama (whose strongman, General Noriega, has no reason to love the United States), then reassigned to various Latin American countries.

Any such regrouping could mean a resurgence of Fidel Castro's "adventurism" of his early years. Or it could be a cheap way for Gorbachev to keep up the pressure on the United States, while disclaiming responsibility. Watch this space.