Clearly, Deng Xiaoping's discovery that Western capitalism could do wonders for China's economy also had inspired hopes of cultural and political reform, an audacious notion that Mr. Deng and his more conservative colleagues were quick to squelch under the slogan of "antibourgeois liberalization."

He'd better not mention that audacious notion in Lessa's presence.

Gorbachev Course Embraced The Gorbachev phenomenon at first startled the French Communists, who in the late 1970's flirted with the audacious notions of "Eurocommunism" - primarily the idea that Communist Parties could develop outside Moscow's orbit - before abandoning them as excessively anti-Soviet.

Yet talk of journeys dominated a discussion of the audacious notion of staging Bach cantatas with the director Peter Sellars last week.

Last week's snowstorm here may have killed an audacious notion of the Nicaraguan President, Daniel Ortega Saavedra, to visit the Vietnam War memorial on Veterans Day last week.