November 26, 1986

Takeover Action Swings Up A lull in merger activity abruptly ended, with billion-dollar offers for Chesebrough-Pond's, Borg-Warner and Carter Hawley Hale.

Congressional leaders expressed astonishment today at the latest disclosures about United States dealings with Iran and vowed to investigate the Administration's actions. The leaders asserted that several laws had probably been violated when funds paid by Iran for weapons were transferred to the Nicaraguan rebels. The leaders also said Congress would probably approve legislation next year cutting off aid to the Nicaraguan rebels and would see to it that the head of the National Security Council would have to be confirmed by the Senate. But the biggest question on Capitol Hill today was whether President Reagan and his chief aides had known about the operation.

New orders for durable goods dropped 6 percent in October, the biggest decline in two and a half years, the Commerce Department reported today. Economists said the slump was more severe than expected but was mitigated by the fact that more than half of it reflected reductions in the volatile military equipment component. The October decline also followed a sharp increase in September. Nonetheless, today's data pointed to continued economic weakness in coming months, particularly in the battered manufacturing sector. That sector has been a source of increasing concern for Federal Reserve officials, who must decide whether to lower interest rates to encourage growth.

THE new American cuisine - a genre that has enjoyed a short but intense life span in New York - is going the way of Tuscan, Sichuan and Cajun cooking. For every American restaurant that has opened during the last year, three times as many have started up with French menus or, at least, French names. Few of these restaurants are French in the sense that Lutece is French, but for various reasons restaurateurs have chosen increasingly to link themselves with France. Consider these New York events in 1986: * Leading the charge of authentic French restaurants, two Frenchmen, Louis Outhier and Gilbert Le Coze, opened Lafayette and Le Bernardin respectively, instead of branching out in their native country. * David Leiderman rechristened his East Side restaurant, Manhattan Market, as Chez Louis and changed the menu to one that features French roasted dishes as well as terrine of foie gras, onion soup gratinee and confit of duck.

The BankAmerica Corporation, in a document that is being circulated to securities analysts, is preparing arguments that will allow it to reject a merger proposed by the First Interstate Bancorp or that will persuade regulators to reject it. In the document, according to analysts who have seen it, BankAmerica said the merger would add no new capital to the bank and would actually reduce common equity. Moreover, it says that after the merger First Interstate might not have sufficient earnings to cover adequately all of the dividends it has promised to pay.