Gorbachev Arrives in London for 2-Day Visit

LONDON â€”  Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev arrived Wednesday night from Cuba for a 40-hour visit that will mix hard talk on human rights with traditional British pageantry.

Flying from the sweltering Caribbean into freezing British rain at Heathrow Airport, Gorbachev and his wife, Raisa, got a red-carpet welcome with a royal military band. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher welcomed them on the tarmac after the plane touched down.

After the Soviet national anthem was played, Gorbachev and Thatcher walked briskly under a pink umbrella past the honor guard of the Royal Air Force.

Neither Gorbachev nor Thatcher made a statement before driving together to the Soviet Embassy residence in London to chat over coffee. Raisa Gorbachev rode with Thatcher’s husband, Denis.

The visit is a major step in Gorbachev’s overtures to Western Europe. Gorbachev will give a speech Friday at London’s ancient Guildhall, seat of city government for 1,000 years, that Soviet officials have said will contain new proposals--possibly on conventional or chemical weapons--aimed at further easing East-West tensions.

The officials have billed the speech as the most important to be delivered by the Soviet president since last December’s U.N. address, in which he announced unilateral troop reductions and a pullback of some combat units in Eastern Europe.

Today has been set aside for 2 1/2 hours of talks at Thatcher’s 10 Downing St. residence, followed by a wreath-laying ceremony at Westminster Abbey, a visit to a high-tech factory outside London and a Downing Street banquet.

Officials say Anglo-Soviet relations have never been better since World War II, and Thatcher, interviewed Wednesday on Soviet television, had warm words for Gorbachev. She recalled a previous meeting at which, she said, she felt as though Gorbachev was trying to point “a giant searchlight into the future.�

The Gorbachevs will have lunch Friday with Queen Elizabeth II, arriving at Windsor Castle in a procession of carriages and cavalry escorts. The elite Coldstream Guards will serve as guard of honor.

Mrs. Gorbachev will go sightseeing, taking in landmarks such as St. Paul’s Cathedral and Tower Bridge.