WASHINGTON (AP):President Barack Obama concedes his words - that a white police officer "acted stupidly" when he arrested a black university scholar in his own home - were ill-chosen. But, while he invited both men to visit him for a beer at the White House, Obama stopped short of publicly apologising for his remark.

The president personally telephoned the two men, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr and Cambridge, Massachusetts, Police Sergeant James Crowley, in an effort to end the rancorous back-and-forth over what had transpired and what Obama had said about it. Trying to lighten the situation, he even commiserated with Crowley about reporters on his lawn.

Gates told the Boston Globe in an email late Friday that he spoke to Obama and said he would meet with Crowley. Gates said he hoped his arrest by Crowley leads to greater sensitivity on racial profiling.

time to move on

"My entire academic career has been based on improving race relations, not exacerbating them, Gates said in the email, adding, "it is time for all of us to move on, and to assess what we can learn from this experience.

Attempts by The Associated Press to reach Crowley on Friday were unsuccessful. A joint statement by three Massachusetts police unions said they appreciated the president's "sincere interest" and added that Crowley had a friendly and meaningful con-versation with Obama.

Hours earlier, a multiracial group of police officers had stood with Crowley in Massachusetts and called on Obama to say he's sorry.

It was a measure of the nation's keen sensitivities on matters of race that the fallout from a disorderly conduct charge in Massachusetts - and the remarks of America's first black president about it - had mushroomed to such an extent that he felt compelled to make a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room to try to put the matter to rest. The blow-up had dominated national attention just as Obama was trying to marshal public pressure to get Congress to push through health care overhaul legislation - and as polls showed growing doubts about his performance.

racial controversy

"This has been ratcheting up, and I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up," Obama said of the racial controversy. "I want to make clear that in my choice of words, I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department and Sgt Crowley specifically. And I could've calibrated those words differently."

The president did not back down from his contention that police had overreacted by arresting the Harvard professor for disorderly conduct after coming to his home to investigate a possible break-in. He added, though, that he thought Gates, too, had overreacted to the police who questioned him. The charge has been dropped.

Obama stirred up a hornet's nest when he said at a prime-time news conference this week that Cambridge police had "acted stupidly" by arresting Gates, a friend of the president's. Still, Obama said Friday he didn't regret stepping into the controversy and hoped the matter would end up being a "teachable moment" for the nation.

"The fact that this has garnered so much attention, I think, is testimony to the fact that these are issues that are still very sensitive here in America," Obama said.

Obama, who has come under intense criticism from police organisations, said he had called Crowley to clear the air, and said the conversation confirmed his belief that the sergeant is an "outstanding police officer and a good man".

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs refused to say whether Obama had apologised to Crowley.

Asked repeatedly about that, Gibbs said if Obama "doesn't want to characterise" his remarks to Crowley, "I'm not going to get ahead of him".

The story had taken on a life of its own, and the White House scrambled to keep up.

media obsession

Gibbs said just Friday morning that the president had probably said most of what he was going to say, and that the only problem was media "obsession".

Hours later, Obama showed up to try to put the issue to rest.

There were signs both that Obama's statement had helped to ease tensions and that his critics were not about to let that be the end of it: A trio of Massachusetts police organisations issued a statement thanking the president for his "willingness to reconsider his remarks". The statement said Crowley was "profoundly grateful" Obama was trying to resolve the situation. But a Republican congressman from Michigan, Thaddeus McCotter, said he would introduce a House resolution calling on Obama to apologise to Crowley.

Obama tried to lighten his tone in his public remarks about his phone conversation with Crowley.

He said the police officer "wanted to find out if there was a way of getting the press off his lawn".

"I informed him that I can't get the press off my lawn," Obama joked.

In his conversation with Gates, aides said, Obama and the professor had spoken about the president's statement to the press and his conversation with Crowley.

The case began on Monday when word broke that Gates, 58, had been arrested five days earlier at the two-storey home he rents from Harvard.

Supporters including civil rights leaders Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson called the arrest an outrageous act of racial profiling. Public interest increased when a photograph surfaced of the handcuffed Gates being escorted off his porch amid three officers, two white and one black.