Russia's Gorbachev Visits Vatican VATICAN CITY (AP) - He sat between two clerics, quoted the pope and helped plug a book recounting a cardinal's battle against church repression in the Soviet bloc. Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's poll ratings are sagging at home, but he has become a popular figure at the Vatican after forging a friendship with Pope John Paul II. Gorbachev sat on a dais Tuesday along with two cardinals, the Italian foreign minister and the president of the European Union's commission to promote the book ``The Martyrdom of Patience,'' the memoirs of Cardinal Agostino Casaroli. Casaroli, who died in 1998, was considered an architect of the Vatican policy that helped the church survive in Eastern Europe during the Cold War. Gorbachev called Casaroli ``a great personality,'' recalling their meeting in Moscow to help prepare Gorbachev's historic visit to the Vatican in 1989, the first by a leader of the Soviet Communist party. Gorbachev has met with the pope at least a half dozen times since.
