Barbara Bush, in a commencement speech clouded by controversy over women's roles in modern American life, exhorted Wellesley College graduates today to put friends and family first in their lives, whatever careers they pursue. She was joined at the women's college graduation by Raisa Gorbachev, who delivered her own words of advice to the 575 graduates and nearly 5,000 other guests gathered inside a white tent on this sylvan campus. Even as the first ladies arrived, some of the seniors who protested the choice of President Bush's homemaker wife as their commencement speaker fired off a new letter urging Mrs. Bush to ``take a definitive and vocal stand'' on abortion rights and other issues. Copies were placed on each of the chairs inside the tent. Mrs. Bush sounded the same themes she usually discusses at commencements, but acknowledged with a joke the controversy over her appearance. ``I know your first choice for today was Alice Walker, known for `The Color Purple,''' she said. ``Instead you got me, known for the color of my hair,'' said the woman George Bush affectionately calls the Silver Fox. Mrs. Gorbachev, dressed in a gray suit rather than the traditional gown worn by commencement speakers, told the graduates that women ``have our special mission.'' ``Always, even in the most cruel and troubled times, women have had the mission of peacemaking, humanism, mercy and kindness,'' she said. ``And if people in the world today are more confident of a peaceful future we have to give a great deal of credit for that to women.'' The lone note of discord came during the playing of the Soviet national anthem when a handful of protesters held up a banner that read, ``Free the Baltics.'' Mrs. Bush urged the women to ``cherish your human connections, your relationships with friends and family.'' ``You will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a friend, a child or a parent,'' she said. Closing with a device she has used before, Mrs. Bush said, ``Somewhere out in this audence may even be someone who will one day follow in my footsteps and preside over the White House as the president's spouse. I wish him well!'' ``The controversy ends here, but our conversation is only beginning,'' she said. Prior to the speech, Peggy B. Reid and Susana R. Cardenas had their new broadside waiting on each of the chairs. Cardenas was one of the main organizer's of the petition drive in April protesting the choice of Mrs. Bush as commencement speaker. ``We ask you, Barbara Bush, as a concerned mother and as a symbol of service to others, to take a definitive and vocal stand on the following critical issues that shape the lives of women in the United States,'' they said. The issues include the ``deterioration of women's reproductive rights''; passage of a family and medical leave act that President Bush has threatened to veto, and affordable day care. Some 150 students signed a petition in April questioning whether the president's homemaker wife was a suitable model of female accomplishment. Mrs. Bush, a college dropout, tendered her invitation to Raisa Gorbachev _ a philosophy Ph.D. and former university lecturer _ before the Wellesley students mounted their protest. Mrs. Bush, who turns 65 on June 12, dropped out of Smith College in 1944 in her sophomore year to marry her teenage sweetheart, George Bush, then a torpedo-bomber pilot for the Navy. Before returning to Washington in mid-afternoon, the first ladies were expected to take a driving tour of downtown Boston with a stop at the Boston Public Gardens and a meeting with about 30 students from the Mathers School, the oldest public school.
