THE SUMMIT AFTERMATH : Bush Betrays Lithuania by Signing Trade Pact, Senate Leader Charges : Congress: But others say the President acted properly. Overall, the summit wins favorable reviews on Capitol Hill.

Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) charged Monday that President Bush has “effectively abandoned Lithuania” by concluding a new trade agreement with Moscow without first requiring the Soviet Union to lift its economic blockade against the breakaway Baltic republic.

Mitchell’s comments reflected strong pro-Lithuanian sentiment in the Senate and House, which may delay or prevent approval of a trade pact or the follow-up benefit of most-favored-nation trading status for the Soviets.

Bush, Mitchell said, “expects Congress to do what he was unwilling to do.”

The blast by Mitchell, who has been a frequent and caustic critic of the President, was the most negative appraisal Monday of Bush’s four-day summit meeting with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

It also revealed a sharp split among Democrats on the issue of linking new trade concessions to the tangled Lithuanian dispute with the Kremlin over secession. Some key Democrats, including Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.), say that the two issues should be separate.

In general, reaction to the summit on Capitol Hill was favorable.

“It was all on the plus side,” said Rep. Dante B. Fascell (D-Fla.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “It was a good meeting both in terms of the two individuals and the agreements they reached.”

Even House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.)--saying that Congress would review the Soviet record on Lithuania carefully when it considers the trade concessions--said of Bush’s refusal to link trade to the Baltic disputes:

“I believe the President did the right thing. At times you have to give the President room to move in ways he thinks best.”

Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), ranking member of his party on the Foreign Relations Committee, voiced disappointment that more progress was not achieved on cutting strategic arms or conventional forces in Europe.

“Gorbachev was either unable or unwilling to deal on major issues,” Lugar said. “So the leaders had to fall back on agreements negotiated previously, some a long time ago.”

At a minimum, Lugar said, the Soviet Union should end its “strangulation embargo” of Lithuania, as well as give final approval to a new law allowing free emigration before Congress takes up the trade agreement and most-favored-nation status.

On May 1, the Senate voted 73 to 24 for a resolution opposing new trade benefits for the Soviet Union until it lifts its economic blockade against Lithuania and begins negotiations on the republic’s demands for independence.

“I like the fact that the President has separated the two (issues),” Pell said in a telephone interview. “I believe we should move ahead with (most-favored-nation status) for the Soviet Union as soon as they (Soviet legislators) finally approve the new emigration law.”

Others saw the latest summit as a clean-up of issues left unresolved for years.

“They consolidated a lot of the pieces that were out there--chemical weapons, principles of a strategic arms treaty, nuclear testing, trade,” said Gephardt. “I thought it was positive--the kind of official recognition that the Cold War has ended . . . (and) a maturing of the relationship.”

On the issue of Lithuanian aspirations for independence, Gephardt said that he believes after meeting with Gorbachev on Friday that the Soviet leader is prepared to conduct a “peaceful and sensible” negotiation with Lithuania’s leaders on the issues.

“I think he got a strong message that Americans feel very strongly about that,” he said.

Majority Leader Mitchell, however, faulted Bush for not linking the trade agreement to an easing of Soviet economic sanctions against Lithuania, adding: “You can’t have negotiations when one side has the other side by the throat.”

Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.) saw the outcome as a Bush rebuff to conservative Republican demands that he take advantage of a weakened Soviet leadership to win greater concessions on Baltic independence and other issues.

“Despite the pressure, the Administration confirmed its policy of not squeezing the last drop out of the lemon by signing a trade agreement without linking it to progress on Lithuania,” Aspin concluded.

In a more critical comment, Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), the influential chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that the Bush Administration focused too much on persuading the Soviet Union to go along with participation by a unified Germany in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Rather, Nunn said, the main emphasis should have been on securing major troop reductions in Central Europe, including a pullback of Soviet forces from East Germany, and then changing NATO’s military strategy.

“I think it would be the ultimate paradox if we now let the German NATO participation question get in front of the basic changes that need to be made in Europe, which in themselves will make this whole transition easier,” Nunn said in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp.