Bush, Gorbachev Sound Unity Note on Eve of Summit : Superpowers: The President, toning down earlier signals, says he won’t ask the Soviets to send troops to the gulf. He will discuss ‘cooperative arrangements.’

With officials concerned that time is working against the United States as well as against the beleaguered regime of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, President Bush arrived here Saturday determined to project a picture of superpower unity in the Persian Gulf.

Earlier, Administration officials had sent strong signals that they would welcome a greater military commitment from Moscow in the gulf, including the deployment of Soviet ground forces.

But as the one-day summit meeting began this morning, White House officials seemed to have stepped back slightly, concerned lest they risk the united front with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev at a time when Hussein is launching a new bid to split the historic alliance.

The President himself said that “I have no plans” to make a direct request for Soviet troops. “I will be talking about a wide array of cooperative arrangements,” he said, responding to questions by reporters as he flew here aboard Air Force One.

“The President has sensed a sensitivity” on the question of sending troops to the Middle East by the Soviets “and felt it was an inappropriate request to make at this time,” White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu said Saturday in a television interview on Cable News Network.

The Soviets now have two warships patrolling the Persian Gulf, and some officials suggested that Bush could ask for the assignment of additional vessels to supplement the U.S. naval armada in the gulf.

Landing here on a gray and chilly day, Bush focused his formal arrival remarks on the importance of unity: “Much is at stake and there is much the world stands to gain if we succeed,” Bush said. “The actions we take can shape this new world for years to come.”

For his part, Gorbachev also stressed unity.

“There is a need to constantly compare our political watches, when cooperation is needed to maintain those enormous positive trends that are developing in the world, to safeguard them from being thwarted by one event or the other,” Gorbachev said on the tarmac at Helsinki Airport, as his wife, Raisa, and Finnish President Mauno Koivisto looked on.

Gorbachev, arriving from Moscow aboard an Ilyushin-62 about eight hours later than Bush, said he accepted Bush’s invitation to the snap summit because the crisis in the Persian Gulf endangers progress in international relations across the board.

However, the makeup of the Soviet leader’s entourage indicated that he wants to discuss other issues as well. It included arms control expert Alexei A. Obukhov of the Foreign Ministry and Yevgeny M. Primakov, a longtime foreign affairs adviser to Gorbachev.

The potential vulnerability of U.S.-Soviet unity was underscored even as the two presidents prepared to meet. Hussein, in his latest televised appeal, sought to drive a wedge between the two superpowers by suggesting that the United States is desecrating Islamic holy places in Saudi Arabia, a potentially inflammatory accusation among millions of already restive Soviet Muslims.

“The angels will be hovering above you on one side, and the devils on the other,” Hussein told Gorbachev and Bush. He said he was not “appealing” to them but reminded them that Iraq had not invaded either of their countries.

Hussein also suggested that, by following the U.S. lead, Moscow had lost its claim to equal status with Washington as a superpower. And his statement said that the unprecedented U.S.-Soviet unity on the gulf question had destroyed the world’s “balance of power.”

Hussein’s concern stems from the fact that for years, that balance of power had allowed Third World countries such as Iraq to play one superpower off against the other.

Sununu said one of the Soviets’ biggest concerns about the current crisis in the Persian Gulf is that they had provided much of the assistance that permitted Hussein to build up his military machine.

“But I think their response since the President coalesced world-wide support has been very positive, very constructive,” Sununu said, “and I think that’s the side that a lot of the discussion will emphasize.”

As Bush arrived, White House officials announced that the United States is sending $10 million to help evacuate the thousands of refugees stranded in desert camps in Jordan because of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.

The new funds raise to $28 million the sum the Administration has donated to refugee relief. Last month, the United States sent $13 million in emergency food aid to the refugee camps and $5 million for tents, water and other emergency items, Administration officials said.

Upwards of 100,000 refugees, mostly Egyptian, Palestinian, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and other workers, have fled Kuwait since the invasion, and most remain stranded in squalid desert camps short of food and water in the stifling heat. New refugees are crossing the border at the rate of 10,000 a day, an Administration official told reporters on Air Force One as Bush flew here.

Although some of the new U.S. money would go for food and other relief supplies, the emphasis will be on “airlift priority,” the official said. “You want to draw down as quickly as possible,” he said. “You don’t want to create a permanent refugee situation.”

With Iraq’s invasion of Aug. 2 now five weeks old and the Iraqi military firmly entrenched in Kuwait and in Iraq near the Saudi Arabian border, there is increasing concern among U.S. analysts that while the pressure of a U.N.-mandated trade embargo is squeezing Iraq, the passage of time may also cause severe problems for the U.S. forces based in Saudi Arabia, where cultural and religious traditions impose strict limits on what American troops may do.

There are more than 60,000 U.S. ground troops now stationed in Saudi Arabia, and the number is expected to total about 100,000 when the buildup reaches its peak some time next month.

“We look at time as both our enemy and Saddam Hussein’s enemy,” a senior government official involved in Persian Gulf strategy said. “The question is really who reaches the line first.

“There are different kinds of lines there. There are a couple of shadowy lines and dotted lines and straight lines. Ours is public opinion and consensus in Congress and keeping our allies together, and not having Arabs get to be anti-U.S. and say, ‘Oh, my God, what are all these people doing in an Arab country and drinking beer and chasing women and all the other things that go with that.’ Time is only going to exacerbate it.”

With time being such a crucial factor in the military standoff, Bush is expected to tell Gorbachev that if the United States eventually concludes that it cannot achieve its goals through economic and political sanctions, it will have to consider resorting to military action.

In fact, some U.S. officials involved in shaping Persian Gulf strategy have suggested that Hussein’s military machine poses such a serious threat to stability in the Persian Gulf that a military strike may be in order even if Iraq should withdraw from Kuwait and agree to leave Kuwait’s future in the hands of a U.N. or Arab group.

On Air Force One, Bush told reporters that in accepting Saddam Hussein’s invitation to address the Iraqi people on Iraqi television, he decided to “explain the world’s position, not just the U.S. position” on the Persian Gulf crisis.

“The position of most of the entire world,” he said, “and I think if it is permitted to be broadcast without censorship . . . it will be a good thing for the Iraqi people. We have no argument with the Iraqi people. The argument of all the countries of the world is with the aggression of Saddam Hussein.”

Asked when he plans to tape the speech, Bush turned to his press secretary, Marlin Fitzwater, who said, “the end of next week.” But Bush declared, “I’d like to do it sooner rather than later.”

Bush also said he wants “very much” to visit U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia but may wait until the buildup of forces is completed and “things have calmed down.”

The President said he is still “determined to make” a South American trip that was scheduled for this month but had to be postponed, even before Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, because of the press of domestic issues, principally negotiations over the federal budget.

The trip is expected to be rescheduled in November or December. West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl also has invited Bush to visit Berlin on Oct. 3 for ceremonies marking German reunification, but Bush said he told Kohl he wasn’t sure it would fit into his schedule.

Bush told reporters he already has informed Gorbachev that he is “all for” trading U.S. oil technology to the Soviet Union in exchange for oil. The President indicated that the Soviets already are negotiating with several California companies, including Chevron, and said “that could well come up at these meetings.”

“And I have no problem with that at all,” Bush said. “I would welcome the best in American know-how on oil production, drilling and seismic work going to the Soviet Union. I think it is something we can work on closely with the Soviet Union.”

Despite humid weather, large crowds, smiling and waving, lined the streets of Helsinki as the President’s 25-vehicle motorcade made the 15-minute trip from the airport to Finland’s Presidential Palace and, later, to the U.S. Embassy.

Near the city’s waterfront, Bush stopped the motorcade to shake hands at a large open-air food and vegetable market, where several hundred people, including American tourists, had lined up in hopes of seeing him.

Later, at the embassy, Bush and his wife, Barbara, shook hands and chatted with about 75 embassy officials, staff and children.