WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama will try to defuse the first race controversy of his term Thursday by sharing a beer with the other two main actors in the drama on the back lawn of the White House, officials said Tuesday.

Spokesman Robert Gibbs said the gathering of Obama, Boston policeman James Crowley and black scholar Henry Louis Gates would take place around 6:00 pm (2200 GMT).

"Weather permitting they'll probably sit at the picnic table, behind the Oval Office" and close to a swingset installed for Obama's two daughters, Gibbs said.

Obama invited Crowley and Gates to the White House in an effort to move past a high-profile controversy sparked when the white Boston police sergeant arrested Gates, a prominent Harvard University professor and personal friend of the president, during a July 16 incident at the scholar's home.

Crowley went to the home after police received a call that two men might be trying to break into the building and arrested Gates for disorderly conduct during an exchange over the incident.

Obama, the nation's first African-American president, sparked a firestorm of controversy by saying during a nationally televsied press conference that police had "acted stupidly" in the affair.

On Friday Obama telephoned Crowley to express regret for his choice of words and to invite the policeman and Gates to the White House for a beer.

Gibbs described the planned meeting as "a chance to talk and a chance to have a dialogue."

"I would not construe this as a formal discussion, this is about having a beer."

It is also an opportunity for Obama "to sort of step back a bit" from the controversy.

Crowley, the spokesman said, will likely bring his family and take pictures, although the beer drinking would involve the three men exclusively.

The incident threatened to torpedo Obama's carefully crafted image as the country's first post-racial president.

But Gibbs insisted that Obama was not attempting to distance himself from delicate racial issues, including the problem of police discrimination against non-whites.

"Given who he is ... one never gets away from that," he said.