Clinton Schedules Meeting With Bush : Presidency: Speeding up his transition work, the governor also plans to talk with congressional leaders and hold press conference.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — On a day in which he picked up the pace of his transition efforts, President-elect Bill Clinton spoke by telephone with President Bush on Wednesday, scheduling a meeting with the President next week.

The Arkansas governor also plans a strategy session with Democratic congressional leaders when he visits Washington next Wednesday and announced that he plans a press conference today at which he is expected to name more members of his transition team.

For the first time since election night, Clinton and Bush spoke in a brief phone call made by the President. Spokesmen for both camps described the talk as cordial.

“The President invited him to come up at any time to help ease through the transition process, any questions he might have,” said George Stephanopoulos, Clinton’s communications director.

As Bush was arriving in Ft. Myers, Fla., to begin a five-day fishing vacation in nearby Boca Grande, White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said the President and the President-elect had spoken for about five minutes.

“I don’t think they expect to discuss any policy issues but rather just to ease the move into the White House later on,” he said. The press secretary said the President also “renewed Mrs. Bush’s invitation to Mrs. Clinton to visit the family quarters.”

Later, Clinton, referring to the President’s call as “statesmanlike,” told reporters: “We agreed it was time for us to get together.”

Earlier Wednesday, Clinton, in his first public address since the election, reached out to veterans with a pledge to ease the transition from the Cold War by supporting incentives for early military retirement and providing better and more accessible health care.

Speaking in the rotunda of the Arkansas Capitol, Clinton promised as commander in chief to “keep this country the strongest in the world” by maintaining the “strongest and most appropriate defense forces.”

In later remarks to reporters, he reiterated his plans to lift the ban on gays in the military after consulting with military leaders on the best approach.

Although he avoided the gay issue in his remarks to an audience of uniformed and retired officers, Clinton reaffirmed his campaign pledge afterward, saying, “I don’t think (sexual) status alone, in the absence of some destructive behavior, should disqualify people.”

On Wednesday evening, Vernon E. Jordan Jr., chairman of Clinton’s transition team, met with White House Chief of Staff James A. Baker III in Baker’s Washington home.

Describing the meeting as a preliminary and informal one between the two “friends,” Stephanopoulos said he did not know whether any announcement would be forthcoming. “They want to establish contact and make sure the transition goes as smoothly as possible,” he said.

The flurry of activities comes after more than a week of meetings between Clinton and his transition staff behind closed doors here at the governor’s mansion.

Stephanopoulos, campaign manager David Wilhelm and campaign strategist Mark Gearan are expected to be named top deputies to transition team director Warren Christopher at today’s press conference, scheduled for 10 a.m. PST.

Clinton was said to be close to final decisions on the team and on delegating authority for the agency-by-agency reviews that will help him fill the ranks of his Administration. An ethics reform package for government officials might be completed by week’s end, aides said.

Although Clinton’s first post-election visit to Washington will not take place until next Wednesday, Clinton will confer Sunday in Little Rock with House Speaker Thomas S. Foley of Washington, Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell of Maine and House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri.

The purpose of the meeting is “just to go over the agenda, assess the lay of the land after the election,” Stephanopoulos said.

Clinton also intends to meet soon with Republican leaders in Congress, although no date has been set, Stephanopoulos said.

Clinton announced his intention Wednesday to resign as governor of Arkansas by Jan. 1, but he gave no specific date, saying that he and Lt. Gov. Jim Guy Tucker face more work to assure a smooth gubernatorial transition. By resigning before the first of the year, the governor will forgo a pay raise that would nearly double his state pension.

The state faces the prospect of massive cuts in its Medicaid program and Clinton said: “I gave them a number of ideas of what I thought could be done.”

Clinton also talked by telephone with several more foreign leaders, including Nigerian President Ibrahim Babangida, Ukraine President Leonid Kravchuk and Indian Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao.

Kravchuk pledged “to make non-proliferation a high priority” and to build on the U.S.-Ukraine bilateral relationship, Stephanopoulos said.

Clinton told Babangida that he would like to “have a broader, more positive range of relationships with all the countries in Africa,” Stephanopoulos said. He also praised the general for his “constructive role” in trying to calm the unrest in Liberia and for his efforts “to move his own country toward elections and a democratic system,” the spokesman said.

Rao expressed to Clinton his hope of developing the kind of warm, personal relationship that he said existed between former Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and former U.S. President John F. Kennedy, according to Stephanopoulos.

The President-elect’s spokesman was asked at his daily briefing about the growing criticism that Jordan faces possible conflict-of-interest dilemmas because he serves on numerous corporate boards, including the RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp., a maker of cigarettes and various consumer products.

“Well, we’re going to make sure there’s no contacts between clients and the transition team of any kind,” Stephanopoulos said.

Jordan has said he would not conduct any client business during the transition, Stephanopoulos noted.

Times staff writer James Gerstenzang contributed to this story.