BUSINESS DIGEST: MONDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1987

LEAD: Philip Greer might have made Archimedes smile.

New Yorkers & Co.; Searching for Fulcrums and Deals

LEAD: The 11 words in gold along the bottom of Eugene Savage's mosaic mural at the courthouse on Queens Boulevard chronicle an idealized vision of crime and punishment: ''Truth, Error, Transgression, Plea, Inquiry, Evidence, Correction, Exoneration, Rehabilitation, Faith, Security.''

Metro Matters; Howard Beach: Verdict of Jurors Only a Beginning

LEAD: Never mind that there is no snow here or that Rudolph, lounging in his stall in the reindeer barn, has a broad, black nose. Forget the two-hour wait for two minutes on Santa Claus's lap. Don't worry about the frigid temperatures.

Requests Heat Up for Santa At New York's North Pole

LEAD: The trade that sent Ralph Sampson to the Golden State Warriors late Saturday night was the culmination of the three uneasy years that it took the Houston Rockets to decide that the 7-foot-4-inch Sampson was never meant to be a power forward but rather a center.

Warriors' Hopes Center On Sampson

LEAD: At age 55 and in only eight weeks, an aggressively conservative talk-show host named Sean Morton Downey Jr. has become a kind of cult figure among young, working-class males whom advertisers normally expect to watch hockey games.

TV Host Sneers To >Succeed

LEAD: Federal investigators, looking into charges of corruption in the awarding of Government telephone contracts, have focused their inquiry on top officials of the General Services Administration, consultants to that agency and representatives of the regional Bell telephone companies, according to individuals close to the investigations.

U.S. Inquiry on Phone Bids Said to Look at Top Officials

LEAD: Just as the stock market crash of 1929 helped shock the country into a fundamental reform of its financial structure, the market plunge of October has set the stage for the most sweeping re-evaluation of America's system for trading stocks in half a century.

Stock Plunge Leads to Look at the Safety Net

LEAD: Judge Anthony M. Kennedy, President Reagan's third choice to fill a seven-month-old Supreme Court vacancy, goes before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday, his first step on what appears to be an easy road to confirmation.

HEARINGS TO BEGIN FOR COURT NOMINEE

LEAD: Committees of Texaco Inc.'s creditors and shareholders will meet in Manhattan this morning, attempting in a pivotal round of talks to agree to the proposed $3 billion cash settlement of the legal battle between Texaco and the Pennzoil Company.

Showdown At Texaco Is Possible

LEAD: Braniff Inc. and Florida Express Inc. have entered into an agreement for Braniff to acquire control of the Orlando-based airline, officials of the companies announced Friday night.

Florida Airline In Braniff Deal

LEAD: When his telephone rang at 6 A.M. on June 1, Robert C. Wright, the president of NBC, was jolted awake. On the line was Mayor Koch.

Keeping NBC in New York: Saga of Deals, Rhetoric and Risks

LEAD: Faced with conflicting advice and confusing economic projections, Federal Reserve officials are likely to stand pat and leave monetary policy unchanged at this week's meeting of the Fed's Open Market Committee, analysts said.

FED SEEN HOLDING TO COURSE

LEAD: Only four years ago, corporate efforts to enlist university researchers in the drive to make American industry more competitive seemed to face major difficulties. But the problems - which mainly involved fears that these alliances would compromise basic academic freedoms - have proved relatively easy to resolve, and many research projects are not only flourishing but producing tangible results.

Business-Campus Ventures Grow

LEAD: YOU can't help but notice the hands.

Rice Has 49ers In Good Hands

LEAD:  Babies as Organ Donors  Medical developments are raising ethical questions about keeping alive babies born without brains as organ donors. Page A18.  Cities Back in the '88 Ring  Cities' officials, after years of feeling ignored by the Government, are pressing an urban agenda on the Presidential candidates.

INSIDE

LEAD: After months of searching for a new director for the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, President Reagan has decided to nominate an Army major general who helped negotiate the new treaty banning medium- and shorter-range missiles.

General Picked For Key Position In Arms Control

LEAD: Amfac Inc., a diversified services company with major real estate holdings in Hawaii, said yesterday that, as part of a restructuring, it planned to sell all of its businesses in the continental United States and concentrate on its Hawaiian operations.

Amfac Is Planning to Sell Its Non-Hawaii Businesses

LEAD: With his support among American officials eroded, Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, Panama's military strongman, has begun more openly courting the Soviet Union, the Salvadoran guerrillas and others hostile to the United States, according to Administration officials and a Nicaraguan defector.

PANAMA'S LEADER WOOS FOES OF U.S.

LEAD: Tawana Brawley, a popular 15-year-old high school student, was found Nov. 28 curled in a fetal position inside a plastic bag behind an apartment house in Wappingers Falls, six miles south of here.

Bias Cases Fuel Anger Of Blacks

LEAD: John Cardinal O'Connor said yesterday that he would not allow instruction about condoms in AIDS education programs in the schools, hospitals and youth programs of the Archdiocese of New York despite the qualified approval of such an approach by his fellow bishops.

Cardinal Won't Allow Instruction on Condoms in Programs on AIDS

LEAD: The question whether South Korea's presidential vote this week will be seen as fair or rigged emerged clearly today as the issue with the greatest potential to touch off post-election disorder.

Fairness Issue in Korean Election Stirs Fears and Threats of Disorder

LEAD: During his junior and senior years at St. John's, Chris Mullin, one of the most popular basketball players to come out of New York City, was known as a fun-loving type who enjoyed a beer or two after a game. News yesterday that Mullin is battling a drinking problem and had checked into a treatment program at Centinela Hospital in Inglewood,

Mullin Getting Treatment

LEAD: Secretary of State George P. Shultz said today that the Reagan Administration would no longer insist that Congress accept the Administration's broad interpretation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, which would have allowed an expanded pattern of ''Star Wars'' testing.

SHULTZ INDICATES WAY TO SIDESTEP ABM TREATY FIGHT

LEAD: The Jets today looked like a team that had never been in a big game before. They were jittery, unable to count to 11 and bamboozled by a 34-year-old quarterback who has neck, shoulder, elbow and knee problems.

Patriots Make Jets Look Bad

Kenneth Nathaniel Medwood is a Belizean track and field athlete, specializing in the 400 metres hurdles. He competed in the 2011 IAAF World Championships in Athletics and was his nation's flagbearer in the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Summer Olympics.

December 14, 1987

Headlines from December 14, 1987

BUSINESS DIGEST: MONDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1987

New Yorkers & Co.; Searching for Fulcrums and Deals

Metro Matters; Howard Beach: Verdict of Jurors Only a Beginning

Requests Heat Up for Santa At New York's North Pole

Warriors' Hopes Center On Sampson

Billboard 200

Dirty Dancing

Bad

Whitesnake

A Momentary Lapse Of Reason

Faith

Notable Births

Historical Context for December 14, 1987