President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev plunged into the most contentious issues on their agenda in the first day of their summit Thursday but achieved no breakthrough on Soviet opposition to a united Germany`s membership in NATO.
In a long day of talks marked by tough bargaining but an upbeat atmosphere, Bush said he was ”encouraged” by unspecified new ideas from Gorbachev about a united Germany`s military status, but other U.S. officials said little real progress was made.
Bush and Gorbachev also clashed on Moscow`s handling of Lithuania`s bid for independence but both promised their second summit would advance what Bush described as ”an open and honest search for common ground.”
Capping months of hard, often combative negotiations, they were to initial on Friday a framework for an agreement to reduce long-range nuclear missiles by 30 percent and drastically slash both nations` arsenals of chemical weapons, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater announced.
U.S. and Soviet negotiators worked late into the night at the State Department to determine whether the two leaders also would commit themselves Friday to negotiate even further strategic arms cuts after the current treaty is completed, a senior State Department official said.
But Bush and Gorbachev downplayed the accords and framed their summit as a pivotal forum for shaping a new order in Europe amid the collapse of communism in the Soviet bloc and the pending unification of Germany.
”The success of this summit depends not on the agreements we will sign,” Bush said in an elaborate arrival ceremony at the South Lawn of the White House, ”but on our efforts to lay the groundwork for overcoming decades of division and discord.”
Gorbachev said the four-day summit marks a turning point for more than just U.S.-Soviet relations. ”The trenches of the Cold War are disappearing,” he said. ”The fog of prejudice, mistrust and animosity is vanishing.”
The two leaders ended their second round of talks Thursday by declaring they were encouraged by a long, blunt exchange over their differing views about a united Germany`s membership in NATO. Bush said, however, that the U.S.`s ”fundamental position” on the issue did not change.
The Soviet Union has firmly rejected U.S. insistence that Germany must be in the alliance. U.S. officials have tried to sweeten the bitter pill for Moscow, offering guarantees that NATO will become more of a political organization and that a united Germany would vastly reduce its military forces and possess no independent nuclear capability.
Details were sketchy, but Soviet spokesman Arkady Maslennikov said Gorbachev brought several ”fresh ideas” on the subject. These included a proposal for Germany to follow the French model by being in NATO but retiring from its integrated military command.
Bush and Gorbachev cautioned that the complex and emotional issue would not be resolved at this summit. But the two leaders ordered Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze to hold follow-up talks over the next two days to explore possible areas of compromise.
The two foreign ministers also agreed to meet next week in Copenhagen immediately after the summit, U.S. officials said.
Fitzwater, in a joint press briefing with Maslennikov, said the new Soviet ideas on Germany were not necessarily that fresh but that Bush was open to dicussions about how they could be reconciled with the longstanding U.S. position.
”I would characterize the (Soviet) ideas as producing a better understanding of each other`s viewpoints and producing some possibilities for narrowing the differences on these matters,” Fitzwater said.
Throughout the day, Bush diplomatically tried to walk a fine line between his firm policy stands on Germany and other subjects without offending the Soviet leader or appearing to take advantage of Gorbachev`s mounting domestic problems.
Displaying a characteristic personal defensiveness over Gorbachev`s charge that the West was trying to dictate the terms of German unification to Moscow, Bush protested that he was sensitive to strong Soviet feelings about Germany aroused by having lost 27 million countrymen during World War II.
”I`m not attempting to dictate but I clearly am entitled to and will put forward the views of the American side as forcefully as I can,” Bush said in an impromptu afternoon news conference in the White House Rose Garden.
It remained uncertain whether the two sides would sign a trade pact. Gorbachev desperately wants an agreement to bolster his precarious economy at home. But so far Bush has refused to grant the Soviet Union coveted most-favored-nation trade status, conditioning it on Moscow easing its crackdown of the breakaway Baltic republics and on passing a new emigration law.
Reports surfaced Thursday night of a possible compromise in which Bush may sign a trade agreement with Gorbachev but delay sending it to Congress for approval until the Soviets comply with the two U.S. conditions.
Under a radiant sun and glorious spring skies, Gorbachev was greeted at the White House by the booming sounds of a 21-gun salute, the Marine Corps band and a fife-and-drum corps resplendent in Revolutionary War uniforms.
Just as they had during Gorbachev`s first visit to Washington in 1987 for his summit with Ronald Reagan, Soviet and American flags flew over the White House and nearby streets Thursday.
But despite the White House pomp, this capital city`s reception to Gorbachev`s visit was more subdued this time and average Washingtonians appeared less enraptured by the Soviet leader`s presence.
That was true even though Gorbachev repeated his by-now trademark walkabout, ordering his black, Soviet-built Zil limousine to stop at a street corner a block from the White House in the afternoon rush hour so he could alight and talk to stunned passersby.
Earlier he brought dozens of American film stars, entertainers and cultural figures ranging from Jane Fonda to Frank Sinatra to Jesse Jackson together for lunch at the Soviet Embassy in the type of celebrity-studded event not seen since Reagan was in the White House.
And the Soviet leader, beleaguered by a host of economic and political problems at home, succeeded in keeping Bush on the public relations defensive. Both before and after entering the White House for talks with the president, he strode confidently into a crowd of waiting American reporters, patiently answering one question after another.
The gesture was not lost on Bush, who found himself holding an impromptu news conference of his own in the Rose Garden of the White House, a most unusual event for an American president on the first day of a superpower summit.
In the absence of major progress so far on the main issues that divide the superpowers, Bush and Gorbachev planned to sign a number of minor accords Friday that include a civil aviation agreement, a maritime boundary pact and an agreement to step up student exchange programs.
Both sides expressed confidence that the framework of a strategic arms reduction treaty the leaders will initial Friday would pave the way for completing a full treaty by the end of the year.
Maslennikov went further, predicting Bush and Gorbachev would meet twice more this year at least, once to sign a so-called START treaty and again at a 35-nation summit in Paris to sign a long-stalled agreement to reduce conventional forces in Europe.
Despite his optimism, negotiators were unable to resolve several key issues, including how to limit mobile missiles with multiple warheads, Bush administration officials said. This and other questions were left for a possible START II treaty.
They also reported little progress in the conventional forces talks, which have been slowed by Soviet apprehensions about the military power and nature of a unified Germany.
Emphasizing the difficult nature of the talks, Bush signaled that the next two days of the summit were to be among the most intensive of his presidency despite Gorbachev`s multitude of political problems at home.
”He`s not trying to hide anything, but he`s not wringing his hands,”
Bush said of the Soviet leader. ”. . . So I don`t feel a weakened presence or anything of that nature. I feel a man determined to do his job.”
