Red-faced in the Kremlin.

Red-Faced in the Kremlin

TALK ABOUT coverups. That was a lulu Mikhail Gorbachevpulled a few days back when he told visiting U.S. congressmen that perhaps the United States should create autonomous areas (homelands?) for its black and other minorities. That was found deeply offensive, not to say historically illitirate, by Congressman Mickey Leland (D., Tex.) and other members of the delegation, and by much of the American black community.

But gosh, heads of state have a way of winging it,and everyone--including our State Department--was quick to explain away the statement. Georgi Arbatov first stonewalled ("It was someone's invention") and then, because Arbatov hasn't really caught on to glasnost, became offensive ("He doesn't interfere in your internal affairs. It's your habit to interfere in ours"). House Majority Leader Jim Wright told Meet the Press that "Gorbachev is not foolish" and gave the following convoluted explanation of why he had said what other people were maintaining he hadn't really said at all: "He was talking in terms of what they are trying to do in order to create more integrity for their ethnic minorities in their country."

The press apparently found the story uninteresting,even though it exposed an abysmal ignorance by Gorbachev of what America is all about. The story disappeared from our TV screens and newspapers faster than the speed of light.