SUMMIT:

Vice President Al Gore will visit Moscow July 23-24 to prepare for a summit meeting in September. President Bill Clinton abandoned a link he had earlier established between a summit and ratification of the START II strategic-arms-reduction treaty. For many Communists and nationalists in the Duma, the linkage of the summit and the treaty was a two-scoop ice-cream cone. By voting “no” on the treaty, they got the extra bonus of denying Boris Yeltsin his summit with the Americans. Now they will have to make do with the simple pleasure of blocking the treaty alone.