August 31, 1985

The Defense Department announced today that it would screen all prospective military recruits for possible exposure to the AIDS virus. Those who show signs of exposure in two separate blood tests will be rejected for military service. Dr. William E. Mayer, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, said at a news conference that the test was intended to protect new recruits from the dangers that routine smallpox vaccinations, which are required of all new enlistees, would pose for victims of AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Dr. Mayer said someone with AIDS, which leaves the body unable to resist disease, would have little defense against even the weak dose of smallpox virus in the vaccination.

After a decade of losing ground economically, American public school teachers are beginning to catch up. Their average salary is now $23,546, and in each of the last two years that average has risen more than 7 percent, twice the rate of inflation. The increases are being paid all across the scale, to the beginning teacher fresh out of college and to 25-year veterans. In some particularly wealthy suburbs, the most senior staff members get more than $50,000, a level that once could not have been achieved without leaving the classroom to be a principal or superintendent.

The Government index intended to predict the course of the economy rose four-tenths of 1 percent in July, the Commerce Department reported today. Analysts said this latest index of leading indicators, together with a substantial downward revision in the increase estimated for June, suggested continued listless economic growth over the next several months. The Commerce Department also reported a large $2.9 billion narrowing of the nation's merchandise trade deficit last month, a development that inspired widely different interpretations. [Page 33.] But most analysts said they thought nothing fundamental had occurred to lessen the nation's record trade deficits.

As recently as mid-June, Frank Lorenzo, the maverick chieftain of the Texas Air Corporation, had all but locked up control of Trans World Airlines, the nation's fourth-largest air carrier. Yet barely two months later, the prize that would have enabled him to build an airline empire suddenly was wrested away by a takeover financier, Carl C. Icahn. How Mr. Icahn, a man with a menacing reputation on Wall Street, pulled off such a coup is a tale of one of the most unusual alliances in the history of the high-stakes, frenetic takeover game. The key to his victory, it turned out, was the cooperation that two of T.W.A.'s major unions offered in return for winning control of their own destiny. Alliance Called a Benchmark The alliance already is being hailed as a benchmark in modern labor history, one that other unions in bitter acquisition contests are expected to emulate. In effect, the unions bargained with the bidder who guaranteed them the best deal.

Several key members of Congress, including Bob Dole, the Senate majority leader, and the Republican National Committee filed briefs in the Supreme Court today opposing the Reagan Administration in a major voting rights case. The brief from the lawmakers said the Administration had misstated the intent of the Voting Rights Act, which is facing its first major legal test since it was strengthened three years ago. Four Republicans and five Democrats joined Mr. Dole in signing the brief. In explaining the decision to file the brief, Republican officials said legislative districting that holds down black representation hurts Republican chances in elections in heavily Democratic states in the South. They also spoke of the need for the Republican Party to broaden its appeal to blacks by supporting their political goals.