WASHINGTON — The first encounter between former Secretary of State Edmund S. Muskie and President George Bush took place on a golf course in the early 1970s.

As Muskie tells the story from his Washington, D.C., office, which is no more than a half mile from the White House, both were members of Maine country clubs in York County — Muskie in Kennebunk and Bush in Kennebunkport.

Bush, then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, invited Muskie and his golf pro to play a round with him and his golf pro. The two teams tied, and Muskie said Bush compared the draw to kissing his sister.

“I gather he’s not thrilled with kissing his sister,” Muskie said.

Today, the president and the former senator not only have neighboring offices, but their homes in southern Maine are only a half mile apart, as the crow flies.

Muskie lives on the Kennebunk side of the Kennebunk River and Bush lives on the Kennebunkport side. The river has divided the two prominent political figures for decades.

Muskie, a Rumford native, moved to Kennebunk in 1966, returning to the town where he spent summers as a college student carrying luggage for guests at the Narragansett Hotel, since converted into a condominium complex with the same name.

“We both have been going to that region for a long time,” said the 76-year-old Muskie. “We were different. I was a bellhop there in the ’30s and he was leading the life of the privileged across the river, and I’m sure we were both enjoying it.”

Today, Muskie, former secretary of state, former U.S. senator, former governor and former presidential contender, still is at the forefront of state, national and international issues.

On May 1, he and a 50-member commission formed to study the legal needs of the poor are scheduled to unveil a report that concludes current legal services in Maine are “wholly inadequate.” It calls for a greater effort from state and federal governments and the state bar association to provide the poor with legal assistance.

“I put everybody on the commission I could think of that would have some power — the governor, the speaker of the state House of Representatives, the president of the Senate, other members of the Legislature, the chief justice of the supreme court. We put everybody on there who’s got any power, so that when the report comes out, the pressure will be on them to contribute,” Muskie said.

In Washington, Muskie recently made headlines when he challenged the United States’ long held policy on Cambodia and called on the Bush administration to talk with the southeast Asian country’s Vietnamese-backed President Hun Sen.

Soviet-backed Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1979 and ousted the Khmer Rouge, which reportedly killed an estimated 1 million people during its five-year occupation.

Today, three rebel forces, including one led by U.S.-backed Norodom Sihanouk and another composed of Khmer Rouge insurgents, are fighting Hun Sen’s government. Negotiations aimed at ending the war and holding nationwide elections in Cambodia have reached a stalemate.

At a Senate hearing on Cambodia in February, Muskie urged the State Department to talk with Hun Sen, advice which it rejected on the grounds that it would constitute recognition of Hun Sen’s government.

A Washington Post column by Mary McGrory noted after the hearing that Muskie “seems to be enjoying his new role as outside agitator.” With a smile, Muskie agreed.

Muskie, a member of the Tower Commission appointed by former President Ronald Reagan to look into the National Security Council’s role in the Iran-Contra affair, said the recent conviction of former National Security Adviser John Poindexter “makes a point more clearly than it’s been made up to now that the president is as subject to the laws of the land as any citizen. That means the whole executive branch. That means it is a crime to lie to Congress. It is a crime to destroy evidence and documents.”

The Iran-Contra probe also has brought an end to the days when the NSC chief played a major role in designing foreign policy, which started with Henry Kissinger, who was named to the post by Richard Nixon, and continued with Zbigniew Brzenziski, who was appointed by Jimmy Carter.

“The Kissinger-Brzenziski aberration, or whatever you want to call it, is now a part of history and may not be duplicated,” Muskie said.

But what about Reagan? Did he approve NSC activities? Does he know more than he has admitted?

“All those kinds of questions, I suppose, are still left in doubt, because only he really knows. We have his taped testimony, which really doesn’t answer them. … And I don’t suppose we’ll ever get those questions answered any more clearly than they’ve been answered,” he said.

Muskie, who fought for the first Clean Air Act of 1970 and the Clean Water Act of 1972, praised Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell for guiding a new clean air bill through the Senate in the first step in 13 years toward tightening restrictions on auto emission standards and industrial pollutants.

“I take great pride in what he’s doing,” Muskie said.

Referring to the current Senate bill, as well as his own legislation, Muskie said environmental laws are never tough enough, but the controversial issue requires steps to be taken one at a time.

“The bill, as is usually the case, goes farther and is tougher than industry says it can stand economically, and it doesn’t go as far as environmentalists say we need to go to get a maximum reduction of the harmful consequences. And they’re both right from their perspectives,” he said. “What you have to do is take a step, see how far it takes us and see where we are.”

The Senate bill is a compromise between a far-reaching draft issued by the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee and a more conservative administration proposal.

If it is at all possible to strengthen the Senate proposal in conference committee negotiations after the House passes its version of the bill, Muskie says Mitchell can do it.

Mitchell is one of Muskie’s picks as a possible presidential contender for the Democratic Party in 1992, along with Sens. Bill Bradley of New Jersey, Sam Nunn of Georgia, Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, Charles Robb of Virginia and Lloyd Bentsen of Texas.

“The trouble is once you start putting a list together, it’s very dangerous that you exclude someone and their feelings might be hurt,” Muskie said.