President Bush and President Mikhail S. Gorbachev ended their first summit meeting today with an extraordinary public affirmation of the new relationship between their countries.
Mr. Gorbachev said he and Mr. Bush agreed that ''the characteristics of the cold war should be abandoned.''
''The arms race, mistrust, psychological and ideological struggle, all those should be things of the past,'' he said.
Mr. Bush said: ''With reform under way in the Soviet Union, we stand at the threshold of a brand-new era of U.S.-Soviet relations. It is within our grasp to contribute each in our own way to overcoming the division of Europe and ending the military confrontation there.'' Another Meeting Is Set .
In the most substantial agreements reached at the meeting, the two leaders said they would strive to conclude treaties on long-range nuclear weapons and conventional arms in 1990. They also agreed to hold another summit meeting in June in the United States.
But the significance of the first summit meeting between the leaders seemed to lie more in the tone than the substance.
They ended their rain-soaked two-day meeting with the first joint news conference by Soviet and American leaders. [ Transcripts of the joint news conference and of a separate news session held by Mr. Bush, pages A12 and A13. ] The Tension Evaporates There had been some annoyance aboard Mr. Gorbachev's ship, the Maxim Gorky, on Saturday night when Mr. Bush canceled an afternoon session and a dinner because of a gale. [ Page A11. ] The tension lingered in the background today but it melted under the television lights in a 65-minute display of cordiality that ended with Mr. Bush reaching over to grasp Mr. Gorbachev's right forearm. The news conference was remarkable for its lack of conflict over issues that have long divided East and West, including arms control, the Middle East and economic relations.
For all the cordiality, the meeting did not produce any new treaties or specific agreements, or even a joint statement.
After eight hours of intimate discussions, the two leaders were still far apart on the issue of sea-based nuclear cruise missiles, a major point of disagreement on a strategic arms treaty. They remained at odds on Central America and Administration officials said Mr. Gorbachev did not give a definitive answer to Mr. Bush's proposals on an agreement reducing chemical weapons. A Sense of Optimism
But Mr. Gorbachev, clearly pleased that Mr. Bush had shown some initiative on economic issues, registered approval on most of the proposals offered by Mr. Bush on Saturday, and the two leaders expressed broad optimism about the course of their relations.
Although they said they did not reach any specific accord on how to deal with the unraveling political power structure in Eastern Europe, Mr. Bush and Mr. Gorbachev seemed optimistic even about that problem.
''We searched for the answer to the question of where do we stand now,'' Mr. Gorbachev said. ''We stated, both of us, that the world leaves one epoch of cold war and enters another epoch.''
The two leaders did not dwell on Eastern Europe at length in their news conference, and American officials said the subject did not take up as much of the summit talks as they had expected. In response to a question about the two Germanys, Mr. Bush adopted what had long been the Soviet position. He said the conference on European security that began in Helsinki ''spells out a concept of permanent borders.''
Mr. Gorbachev said ''any artificial acceleration'' of the unification process would make it more difficult to carry through the changes taking place in Eastern Europe.
At times, the cautious Mr. Bush seemed to make an effort to show that all was not settled between the two nations. Even then, the statements from both sides were far more mild than the political oratory that has characterized the Soviet-American relationship for much of the last four decades.
Mr. Bush said his conversation with Mr. Gorbachev stayed cordial even on human rights. ''I remember a time when I first met Mr. Gorbachev and we talked about human rights and he became visibly agitated with me for raising it,'' Mr. Bush said.
''And I think there's been a great evolution in his thinking on that question, and certainly on his relations with the United States, just as there had been an evolution on my thinking,'' Mr. Bush said, noting that he had once opposed holding the very type of meeting he had with Mr. Gorbachev here. A Briefing for the Allies
Indeed, when it came to what American officials said was the most troublesome policy dispute between the two leaders during the shipboard meeting - American charges that Nicaragua is sending arms to the leftist rebels in El Salvador - Mr. Gorbachev said, ''We understand the concerns of the United States.''
Mr. Bush, for his part, said he was ''angry'' about the issue but was not accusing Mr. Gorbachev of anything. Noting that Nicaragua had assured the Soviet Union that the arms shipments had ended, Mr. Bush said, ''I do not believe the Sandinistas have told the truth to our Soviet friends.''
Mr. Bush and Mr. Gorbachev talked to reporters aboard the Maxim Gorky, a Soviet cruise liner, before Mr. Gorbachev returned to Moscow.
Later in the day President Bush flew to Brussels, where he is to meet with heads of state and government of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on Monday. At the airport this evening, he paid tribute to NATO's role in maintaining stability in Europe, noting that ''this alliance of free nations remains the bedrock of peaceful change in Europe.''
He also dined with the West German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, who was chosen as the first Western European leader to be personally briefed on the outcome of the summit meeting.
After the dinner, a spokesman for Mr. Kohl said Mr. Bush had provided the West German leader with a full rundown on his talks with Mr. Gorbachev, ranging over such topics as arms control, European integration and developments in Eastern Europe.
The spokesman, Hans Klein, said Mr. Kohl had heard nothing tonight to suggest that either Mr. Bush or Mr. Gorbachev had expressed any opposition to his 10-point plan, announced in Bonn last week, for the eventual reunification of Germany in the long term. Bad Weather 'Doesn't Matter'
The meeting between Mr. Bush and Mr. Gorbachev was confined to the cruised liner after a screeching gale whipped the seas so high that it was impossible to meet as planned on the Soviet and American warships that heaved forlornly on the waves in Marsaxlokk Bay.
Mr. Bush, whose staff resolutely tried to put the best face on the ruins of their strategy for television coverage, said ''it doesn't matter'' that the two leaders never set foot together on an American ship. Asked if the weather had ruined his summit meeting, Mr. Bush snapped back, ''Hell no.''
On Saturday, Mr. Bush outlined 18 proposals to Mr. Gorbachev that ranged from nuclear arms contol to educational exchanges. A senior American official who sat in on the talks said Mr. Gorbachev responded positively to almost all of them.
The notable exceptions, he said, were Mr. Bush's proposal that the two nations negotiate and sign an agreement in 1990 limiting their chemical arsenals to 20 percent of the present American level and that they call jointly for the holding of the 2004 Olympic Games on both sides of Berlin.
The official said that Mr. Gorbachev did not give Mr. Bush a clear no on those points but rather did not register the approval that he offered on the other issues.
In the news conference, Mr. Gorbachev said he had agreed with a suggestion by Mr. Bush that Secretary of State James A. Baker 3d and the Soviet Foreign Minister, Eduard A. Shevardnadze, meet in the Soviet Union in January to discuss arms control issues in preparation for a summit conference in the United States that the two leaders agreed to hold in the last two weeks of June.
He reaffirmed Mr. Bush's hope that the two leaders could sign a strategic arms control treaty, cutting long-range nuclear arsenals in half, at the next summit meeting. Barring that, he said, he hoped the two ministers would be able to resolve enough outstanding problems that at the next summit they could ''agree on the provisions of the treaty and later in the coming months it might be ready for signature.''
Mr. Gorbachev said he also hoped that a treaty limiting conventional weapons in Europe could be signed in 1990 in Vienna. Mr. Bush told reporters that he and Mr. Gorbachev had discussed in general what further cuts might be made in conventional arms, but did not talk about specific numbers.
On strategic arms, Mr. Gorbachev outlined some major obstacles to an accord. He said he was particularly concerned about remaining differences on air-launched cruise missiles and added that he had not dropped his insistence on opening negotiations on sea-based nuclear cruise missiles. Noting the progress that has been made in a number of other areas, Mr. Gorbachev said, ''The time has come when we should begin discussing naval forces.''
Mr. Gorbachev did not make it clear whether he was still setting forth a side agreement on naval weapons as a condition for concluding a strategic arms treaty. But Mr. Bush did suggest that he has not eased his opposition to negotiating about such weapons.
''The chairman knows that I could not come here to make deals in arms control,'' said Mr. Bush, who has repeatedly promised to consult his allies before making any major new treaty proposals or reaching any substantive agreements with Mr. Gorbachev on reducing nuclear or conventional arms. Trade Proposals Appreciated
Mr. Gorbachev was especially appreciative in public - and in private too, American and Soviet officials said - about Mr. Bush's proposals on trade and economic relations, which included his expression of support for Soviet observer status in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Mr. Bush also said he would begin immediate negotiations on lifting American barriers to trade with the Soviet Union and would recommend most-favored-nation status as soon as new Soviet emigration laws are enacted.
Mr. Gorbachev, who has long been seeking these moves and had viewed the lack of progress on economic issues as a major problem in the superpower relationship, said Mr. Bush's ideas and the discussion in Malta ''could be regarded as a political impetus which we were lacking for our economic cooperation to gain momentum.''
Mr. Bush called trade ''one of the most fruitful parts of our discussion'' and said he would ''like to have a climate in which American businessmen can help with what Chairman Gorbachev is trying to do in terms of reform and glasnost.'' Differences Narrowed, Bush Says
On Central America, Mr. Bush said there were still clear differences between himself and Mr. Gorbachev. But he said, ''I'd like to feel that if there are some differences between the two of us, then they have been narrowed.''
Turning to the Middle East, Mr. Bush moved away from the often-expressed American view that the Soviet Union is impeding the peace process or, at best, trying to gain influence in the region at American expense.
''The Soviet Union is playing a constructive role in Lebanon and there is common ground there,'' Mr. Bush said, noting that it had ''not always been the case in history'' for an American President to take such a position.
A version of this article appears in print on Dec. 4, 1989
