Gorbachev Begins Tour In Havana With Castro

HAVANA--Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev arrived yesterday in Cuba for talks with President Fidel Castro, who has criticized the Soviet leader's new pragmatic brand of communism.

Gorbachev's blue and white Aeroflot jetliner touched down at Havana's airport about 6 p.m. EDT and was greeted by cheering crowds.

Gorbachev was met by Castro, and the two stood side by side on the tarmac as a military band played the anthems of their two countries.

In Havana, Gorbachev will hold lengthy discussions with Castro, leader of the island nation 90 miles off the Florida coast. Castro has criticized Gorbachev's pragmatic reforms, and Soviet officials have said they may reduce aid in the future to the Caribbean nation.

"We are going to discuss Fidel Castro's performance, just as he is going to discuss our own performance," Soviet spokesperson Gennady Gerasimov told ABC-TV in an interview from Havana. "We will exchange views and experiences."

Earlier yesterday, Gorbachev stopped in Ireland and held a "shamrock and sickle summit" with Prime Minister Charles Haughey, who suggested the next U.S.-Soviet summit be held in Ireland.

Gorbachev's two-hour stop to the politically neutral, staunchly Roman Catholic Ireland was the first by a Kremlin leader. It was Gorbachev's first overseas visit since a December trip to the United States.

Gorbachev will be in Cuba through Wednesday for meetings with Castro. In London, he will hold talks Thursday with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, address financial and business leaders Friday and have lunch with Queen Elizabeth II before departing for Moscow.

After his talks with Gorbachev, Haughey told reporters he offered Dublin as the site of the next U.S.-Soviet summit but got no immediate response.

During their meeting, Gorbachev and Haughey were photographed holding glasses of stout, the country's favorite drink. Gorbachev has championed an anti-drinking campaign in the Soviet Union, and it was not known whether he drank the stout.

Against the backdrop of Ireland's longstanding neutrality in the East-West military confrontation, Gorbachev said it was time "to set our common European house in order," accept the realities of being divided into separate economic and military blocs and "play a key role in putting international relations on a new level."

Replying to a question, Gorbachev told a news conference, "We feel very strongly that we are Europeans," and continued:

"The European process can only succeed if it involves all our European countries, and of course the United States and Canada. But we think we should proceed from the realities existing in the world: the existence of both the European Economic Community and [its East Bloc counterpart] Comecon, of both NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

"We believe that on the basis of these realities, we have to expand the positive elements of today's Europe and to lessen confrontation, particularly military confrontation."

Greeting Gorbachev on the tarmac, Haughey opened with "Cead Mile Failte" (100,000 Welcomes), a traditional Irish language phrase. And to an approving smile from Gorbachev, the 63-year-old prime minister added in Russian, "I'm delighted you have arrived in our country."

Haughey's wife, Maureen, took Raisa Gorbachev on a tour of nearby Bunratty Folk Park, where 19th century Irish village life is portrayed.

Raisa Gorbachev carried a bouquet done up in green, white and orange--Ireland's national colors.

The Irish tricolor fluttered alongside the hammer-and-sickle at the terminal building where Gorbachev and Haughey talked.

Gorbachev and Haughey, surrounded by their foreign ministers and aides, met in a VIP lounge. Outside hung a vast oil painting of the late John F. Kennedy '40 that commemorated a 1963 visit by the Irish-American president shortly before he was assassinated.

A huge sign declaring "Welcome" in Irish, Russian and English hung over Shannon's sprawling duty-free shop.

Before leaving, the Gorbachevs strolled through the shop, highlighting a new Soviet-Irish connection: Irish airport authorities are organizing the duty-free shopping at Moscow's and Leningrad's airports.