July 31 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama hosted a “friendly, thoughtful” talk last night with Harvard University scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. and police Sergeant James Crowley, whose confrontation led to a national debate about race and sidetracked the administration’s domestic agenda.

The two men and Obama, who professed before the meeting to being “fascinated with the fascination” about it, spent about 40 minutes at a table near the White House Rose Garden for a conversation over beers. The talk was intended to put behind them the controversy over the July 16 arrest of Gates, who is black, by Crowley, who is white.

“Even before we sat down for the beer, I learned that the two gentlemen spent some time together listening to one another, which is a testament to them,” Obama said in a statement issued after the meeting. “I am hopeful that all of us are able to draw this positive lesson from this episode.”

Crowley said afterward there was “no tension” during the meeting, even though he and Gates still disagree about the circumstances of the confrontation and arrest of Gates on the front porch of his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They plan another meeting to talk about the issues raised.

“We agreed to move forward,” the Cambridge police officer told reporters at the headquarters of the AFL-CIO labor federation in Washington. “I don’t think we spent too much time dwelling on the past.”

‘Great Opportunity’

Gates said in a statement posted on the Web site theroot.com, of which he is editor-in-chief, that he and Crowley were thrown together “through an accident of time and place.”

They now must “utilize the great opportunity that fate has given us to foster greater sympathy among the American public for the daily perils of policing on the one hand, and for the genuine fears of racial profiling on the other hand,” Gates wrote.

Obama, Gates and Crowley, joined by Vice President Joe Biden, were served beer in glass mugs by White House butlers -- Bud Light for the president, a non-alcoholic Buckler for Biden, Sam Adams Light for Gates and Blue Moon for Crowley. Obama and Biden were in shirtsleeves; Crowley and Gates kept their suit jackets on.

Gates and Crowley brought family members with them to the White House and toured the East Wing together. They met Obama in the Oval Office before moving outside.

Reporters and photographers were allowed to observe the first few minutes of the session -- out of hearing range -- before being ushered away.

The Arrest

Gates, 58, was arrested at his home and charged with disorderly conduct after a confrontation with Crowley, 42, who was checking a report of a possible break-in. Gates was returning from an overseas trip and had trouble with a stuck door.

The charges against Gates were dropped, and the following week Obama, 47, responding to a question at a news conference, said the police “acted stupidly.”

Obama’s remarks prompted police union officials in Cambridge to call for an apology from the president. Obama instead called Crowley and Gates, an old friend the president calls “Skip,” and invited them to the White House.

Obama called the matter a “teachable moment” for the nation on the topic of race.

David Harris, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law who specializes on racial profiling and police behavior, said earlier yesterday there was little likelihood of a breakthrough on race relations from the White House meeting.

“If there’s a teachable moment here, it’s that there’s a lot about each other we don’t understand,” he said.

Moving Ahead

Obama and his aides sought to put the situation behind them. Questions about the evening’s meeting -- including the details of what beer would be served or offered and whether snacks or hors d’oeuvres would be provided -- at times sidetracked the administration’s focus on health care and the economy.

The president earlier in the day sought to tamp down any expectation of a broad statement on race relations or for any specific outcome from the meeting.

This is the participants “having a drink at the end of the day and hopefully giving people an opportunity to listen to each other,” Obama told reporters in the Oval Office. “That’s really all it is.”

A poll conducted July 27 by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that 79 percent of the public had heard about the incident involving Gates and Crowley, with 46 percent saying they’ve heard a lot about it. Forty-one percent disapproved of Obama’s handling of the situation and 29 percent approved. The poll of 480 people has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.5 percentage points.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs may have expressed his fatigue with the issue when he was asked yesterday what he hoped to have accomplished after the meeting was over.

“No more questions about what kind of beer they’re going to drink,” he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Nicholas Johnston in Washington at njohnston3@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: July 31, 2009 00:01 EDT