WHILE Time staff members in many parts of the world contributed to this week's cover story on the Soviet Union, the man who had the most immediate contact with Russian life in the process is our Eastern Europe correspondent, William Rademaekers. Armed with eight years' experience covering Communist countries, Rademaekers made two trips to Russia, and one aspect of the way he was received reveals a great deal about Soviet bureaucracy and the Russian frame of mind.

On his first visit to Moscow, in August, Rademaekers was assigned by Intourist to a spacious room in the Rossia Hotel. The view included St. Basil's Cathedral and the famed chime bells of the Spasskaya clock tower in the Kremlin Wall. "Like other Americans there," he recalls, "I did not complain, and I spent money, which is highly regarded by Intourist." Less than two months later, Rademaekers, while in Paris, applied for another Soviet visa and bought his Intourist coupons through a French travel agency. Thus began an amusing case of confused identity.

On his arrival in Kiev, capital of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Rademaekers was greeted in French by an Intourist guide. Although he speaks German, Hungarian, and some Italian and Spanish, Rademaekers has no facility in French. He asked the guide if she spoke English or any of the other languages. "No," she informed him coldly. "You are French." The correspondent produced his passport and tried to explain why the visa came from Paris, not New York. But since the guide could speak no English and he no French, the conversation ended with a surly driver delivering the "Frantsuzsky tourist" downtown to the relatively new Dnipro Hotel, where he was assigned a small, inelegant room on the second floor. A second, then a third French-speaking Intourist guide appeared. The last was able to ask, suspiciously:

"English, you speak?" "American, I am," said Rademaekers. That brought an Intourist guide who announced in fluent American: "You will be given a bigger room. We thought you were French."

When he got to Tbilisi, capital of Georgia, Rademaekers was met by a male guide who, seeing only an American alight from the plane, said that they must wait for a Frenchman who was also due. After two hours of warmhearted brandy tippling at the airport with Georgians, who obviously wanted to show their fondness for Americans, Rademaekers was inspired to ask the name of the overdue French tourist. "Rade-mekus," said the guide. Thus Bill Rademaekers discovered that he was waiting for himself.

Ultimately, Rademaekers tried to get everything straight with an Intourist official. "You are French," he was told, "because our Intourist office in Kiev said that a French tourist with your name is arriving here. That is why you are French."

"But when I leave for Moscow, you will tell them that I am not French. I am American."

"I will not do that. They will say, 'What happened to the French tourist sent to you from Kiev? And where did you pick up that American?' You must remain French."

"All right, then tell me, why does every hotel I check into give me a suite as an American and a small room as a Frenchman, even though 1 pay the same?"

"You French spend so little money," said the girl guide from Intourist, "and you always complain."

After that, Rademaekers reported, he remained French, which led him to stay at Moscow's Hotel Berlin, "a favorite Intourist placement center for the French because it is also the main billet for low-ranking East German functionaries, and no one knows who else to put them with." To be properly in character, he complained a lot.

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