Congress ‘Upbeat’ as Bush Reports on Summit Gains

WASHINGTON —  President Bush, just home from back-to-back summits with America’s closest military and economic allies, won congressional support Thursday for proposed reforms of NATO and a go-slow approach to aid to Moscow.

During a half-hour meeting at the White House, Bush briefed Democratic and Republican leaders on the results of his meeting last week with NATO leaders in London and the seven-nation economic summit in Houston, which concluded Wednesday.

“It was basically upbeat,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Dante B. Fascell (D-Fla.) said after the White House meeting, “and I think everybody felt that way about what the United States was able to accomplish.”

The session with congressional leaders followed a similar report to the Cabinet. Bush also indicated to reporters that he had yet to telephone Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev to discuss the results of the two summits.

For the most part, Bush succeeded at London and Houston in winning strong backing for his vision of how the Western allies should alter their defenses and their economic relations with the Soviet Union in the post-Cold War era.