‘Era of Confrontation’ Put to Rest : Europe: Bush, Gorbachev lead final rites for the Cold War, but concern over poverty in Soviet Union casts a pall over the occasion.

President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev led world leaders today in final rites for the Cold War as a 34-nation summit ended with a triumphant declaration that the “era of confrontation and division in Europe is over.”

The celebration was tempered by concern over the crisis of poverty facing the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe, which Gorbachev dramatized with a plea for food supplies from the West.

And the leaders left Paris still apparently groping for consensus on how to force Iraq’s withdrawal from Kuwait.

The final act of the first post-Cold War European summit was marked by the signing of the Charter of Paris, a commitment to democracy, human rights and economic freedom. “We are closing a chapter in history. The Cold War is over and we now move on toward working . . . toward a peaceful and stable Europe,” Bush said.

It took only 15 minutes to sign the document, bound in red leather, which signaled an end to an era of tensions in the nuclear age.

French President Francois Mitterrand was the first to sign. He was followed by Helmut Kohl, chancellor of newly unified Germany, and the leaders of Poland, Hungary and other nations that until a few months ago were hard-line Communist allies of the Soviet Union.

The charter sets up a small bureaucracy in Prague for the 34-nation Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, as well as a center for the prevention of conflict in Vienna and an office in Warsaw to help monitor elections.

Facing the prospect of starvation and mass migration this winter, the Soviet Union gave Western countries a list of food it needs but said it wanted no handouts, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney told a news conference today.

The list, presented as Leningrad and Moscow faced food rationing for the first time since World War II, included pork, beef, flour, butter, powdered milk and peanut oil.

“These are pretty difficult and practical problems to which (Gorbachev) must have an answer before the winter sets in,” Mulroney said.

“They made it very clear they were not looking for alms or handouts, they were looking for a commercial transaction, but obviously one on terms as favorable as possible,” he added.

Eager to repay Moscow for enabling German unification, Kohl and the 12-nation European Community pledged more food aid.

Several leaders warned that prosperous Western Europe could be swamped by refugees from the wreckage of communism if the Continent did not work to improve life quickly in the East.