SOVIETS: Bush Encouraged by Gorbachev Talk

Vice President George Bush met for 85 minutes Wednesday with new Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and said afterward, “I think we have reason to be encouraged.”

He also indicated that he had told Gorbachev that President Reagan is ready for a superpower summit conference whenever the Kremlin wants one. The vice president strongly implied that he had delivered an invitation from Reagan to Gorbachev during the discussion, which was held late Wednesday night after the funeral of Soviet President Konstantin U. Chernenko.

“The President does feel a (summit) meeting would be useful,” Bush said at a news conference when asked if Reagan had invited Gorbachev to Washington. He declined to give a direct answer to the question, although White House officials had said late Tuesday that the mesage Bush was to deliver would suggest a summit in the United States.

Bush also said he could not report anything about whether Gorbachev is ready for a face-to-face encounter with the American President.

‘Good Time to Move’

“The climate is such that we feel this is a good time to move forward,” Bush said. “I cannot speak for him (Reagan), but I think he would be ready (for a summit meeting) as soon as the Soviet leadership will be.”

The vice president, who was joined by Secretary of State George P. Shultz for the meeting with Gorbachev and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko, gave an upbeat appraisal of the discussion.

“We’re not euphoric,” Bush said, noting that major problems and differences exist between Washington and Moscow. “But we encountered nothing (at the meeting) to discourage us in any way.”

As a result, he added, U.S. officials have high hopes for progress at nuclear arms control talks in Geneva and for an overall reduction in Soviet-American tensions.

Kissinger Cautions

In Washington, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, after having a private lunch with Reagan at the White House, told reporters that Americans make a mistake by viewing a Soviet leadership change as “a personality contest.”

“The first thing one has to remember is that you don’t get to the head of the Politburo necessarily by being a choirboy,” he said. “You have to be a pretty strong and tough individual.”

Kissinger said he opposes the concept of a “get-acquainted” summit meeting between Reagan and Gorbachev, and indicated that the President agrees with him. “I don’t think foreign policy is a psychiatric exercise,” he said.

However, the former secretary of state predicted that there will be a Reagan-Gorbachev summit “in due course.”

“We have an unusual opportunity,” Kissinger said, “if the Soviets realize that the way things have been going they can’t continue, as the President has made emphatically clear.” He said Reagan “above all is interested in bringing about a fundamental change in international tensions.”

Bush, who previously attended the Red Square funerals of Presidents Yuri V. Andropov and Leonid I. Brezhnev, spoke along much the same lines, saying he believes that there is more opportunity now to make progress in Soviet-American relations than there has been in the last few years.

“The frankness and the content of the meeting (with Gorbachev) were such that I think we have reason to be encouraged,” he said.

Bush was asked if Reagan’s advocacy of research on space-based defenses against nuclear missiles, nicknamed “Star Wars,” would block progress because of the Kremlin’s strong condemnation of it. “We don’t feel from the overall conversation that anything is an insuperable barrier,” he replied.

‘Strong Impression’

As for Gorbachev himself, Bush described him as a man of confident self-assurance, adding, “He made a very strong impression.”

Gorbachev has moved quickly to establish himself as an active leader following months of inactivity by his ailing predecessor.

Gorbachev, the 54-year-old successor to the Kremlin leadership, presided over the Red Square funeral for Chernenko, whose 13-month tenure was plagued by illness before he died last Sunday at the age of 73.

“We reaffirm once again our readiness to maintain good neighborly relations with all countries on the principles of peaceful coexistence, on the basis of equality and mutually advantageous cooperation,” Gorbachev said in his funeral oration.

“The Soviet Union has never threatened anyone,” he said. “But no one will ever be able to dictate his will to us.

“Socialism, as Lenin thought, will prove its advantages, but it will prove them not by force of arms but by force of example in all fields of society’s life--economic, political and moral.”

Thatcher Optimistic

Gorbachev also met with dozens of other foreign leaders who flew to Moscow for the funeral and a first-hand look at the new leader, who is the ruling Politburo’s youngest member.

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who spent 55 minutes with him, said afterward, “I believe from my talks with him that the Geneva negotiations should result in success.”

French President Francois Mitterrand described Gorbachev as “audacious” and added: “He’s a calm man who has an open mind and showed the will to tackle problems firmly.” However, the French leader cautioned that it would be a mistake to believe that the coming to power of Gorbachev alone could produce major changes in Soviet policies.

Armored Vehicle

Chernenko, the seventh leader of the Soviet Union, was buried near the Kremlin wall after his coffin was towed by an armored vehicle through Red Square.

Scores of portraits of Chernenko, each trimmed with red-and-black mourning bands, were held aloft by spectators. His widow, Anna, other family members and friends walked behind the gun carriage bearing his body while a military band played Chopin’s funeral march.

As the coffin was lowered into the grave, artillery boomed and factory whistles sounded in a final salute to Chernenko, the third Kremlin leader to die in the last 28 months.

Times reporter George Skelton in Washington contributed to this story.