Gorbachev and East Bloc Chiefs Meet to Renew Pact

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and other heads of the Warsaw Pact nations arrived Thursday for a ceremonial summit meeting to renew the 30-year-old military alliance that binds most of Eastern Europe to the Soviet Union.

There has been no formal announcement of the summit’s purpose or even its precise date. But Polish officials said documents renewing the treaty, which expires next month, will be signed in a ceremony today.

Diplomatic observers said the pact will apparently be renewed without significant changes for 20 years, with provision for a further automatic extension of 10 years. The current treaty was signed in Warsaw on May 14, 1955, for a 30-year term.

Major Speech Expected

Gorbachev is expected to use the one-day summit to make a major foreign policy speech. The seven Warsaw Pact nations will also issue a formal communique that is likely to revive a number of disarmament proposals put forward over the last several years, diplomats and Polish officials said.

The summit marks Gorbachev’s first trip out of the Soviet Union since he succeeded Konstantin U. Chernenko as general secretary of the Communist Party last month.

A cold drizzle fell as Gorbachev stepped down the ramp of his blue-and-white Aeroflot plane at the Warsaw airport, accompanied by Premier Nikolai A. Tikhonov, Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko, Defense Minister Sergei L. Sokolov, and Konstantin V. Rusakov, a senior party secretary in charge of relations with ruling Communist parties.

Marshal Viktor G. Kulikov, commander of the Warsaw Pact forces, was reported to have arrived separately for the summit.

Crowd at Airport

After a brief welcoming ceremony, a smiling Gorbachev strode past a small and apparently carefully selected crowd of well-wishers at the airport who waved miniature Soviet flags.

The same crowd appeared to change flags and shout greetings in sequence to the five other arriving delegations led by Todor Zhivkov of Bulgaria, Gustav Husak of Czechoslovakia, Erich Honecker of East Germany, Janos Kadar of Hungary and Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania.

The Polish leader, Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, the only military ruler of a Soviet Bloc nation, exchanged his customary uniform for civilian clothes as he greeted each delegation in turn.

Pomp and Secrecy

The summit, which is expected to be little more than a formality, is taking place in an incongruous atmosphere of pomp and secrecy.

Flags of the pact nations decorate the lampposts along miles of major streets in Warsaw. Red and white banners in the city hail the Warsaw Pact as a vital guardian of world peace, while Thursday’s editions of official newspapers elaborated on this theme in flowery editorials stressing the importance of the summit.

No official statement, however, has actually divulged the date of the summit or said that its purpose is to renew the military alliance.