THE WASHINGTON SUMMIT : Leaders Now Will Have Plenty of Time to Talk : Negotiations: Malta sessions were cut short by storms. Camp David ‘really is the key to this thing,’ an expert says.

WASHINGTON —  When last December’s Malta summit ended, both President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev complained that their talks had been cut too short by the storms that had nearly drowned the island.

Hours of meeting time had had to be scrubbed from what Bush had foreseen as an informal, “feet up,” summit.

This time, both presidents say, things will be different.

“This is the first time that the President of the United States and I will have enough time to reflect on and discuss . . . one on one, all questions either of us might have,” Gorbachev said when he arrived in Washington on Wednesday afternoon.

Bush’s top aides, and the President, himself, echo the same line. More important even than signing summit agreements, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin L. Powell said Thursday, “The objective is to get the two leaders to talk to each other. The real key is just to have these two very important men talk.”

If so, the most important phase of the summit begins this morning in the rustic setting of Camp David, the presidential retreat in the low mountains of western Maryland.

“I wouldn’t try to tote up the success” of the summit until today’s meetings conclude, Condoleeza Rice, the National Security Council’s top Soviet expert, said. “Camp David really is the key to this thing.”

The lengthy, informal sessions planned for today, as much as 9 1/3 hours of unstructured time, will be without recent precedent.

During the eight years of the Reagan Administration, U.S. officials who felt President Reagan had little knowledge of foreign affairs steered him away from holding informal sessions with foreign leaders. Before that, for several years, Soviet bureaucrats carefully scripted all meetings of the aged Leonid I. Brezhnev.

So for the first time in well over a decade, both superpowers are led by presidents with the knowledge and self-confidence to use an informal session to make a deal.

The chief subject on the agenda, U.S. officials say, will be the interrelated topics that have dominated the last two days of talks--the future framework for European security, the changing role of the NOrth Atlantic Treaty Organization and the future of a reunited Germany--what Bush calls the “shape of a post-German-unification Europe.”

While the two presidents have discussed those issues extensively already, White House aides hope that on this last day of discussions, in a more relaxed setting, the two may be able to make more progress.

Bush, who has made extensive use of Camp David as a setting to host foreign leaders whom he hopes to turn into friends, also has tried to develop a closer personal relationship with Gorbachev.

While Bush is a strong believer in the value of personal relationships with foreign leaders, foreign policy experts long have warned that even with leaders as well versed in the nuances as Bush and Gorbachev, personal diplomacy has pitfalls.

The outstanding example of those dangers was the 1986 Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, during which Gorbachev almost got Reagan to agree on a plan calling for total elimination of nuclear weapons on both sides.

In the end, the deal fell apart because Reagan insisted on retaining his Strategic Defense Initiative space-based anti-missile program, known as “Star Wars,” that Gorbachev wanted to limit to a research plan. But when the almost-deal became public, NATO defense planners were horrified. The essential defense strategy of the United States and its allies has been to rely on nuclear weapons to offset the huge numerical advantages of the Soviet army in Europe.

TODAY’S SCHEDULE All times are EDT. 9:30 a.m.--Presidents Bush and Gorbachev and their entourages will spend the day at Camp David, Md., the presidential retreat. (Live coverage on CBS, CNN.)

5 p.m.--Briefing by White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater and Soviet spokesman Arkady A. Maslennikov. (Live coverage by CNN.)

7:30 p.m.--Gorbachevs leave Camp David and return to Washington.