LEAD: Two days after conferring with President Mikhail S. Gorbachev in Moscow, Egon Krenz, the new East German leader, returned home and pleaded with his citizens today to stop fleeing the country, promising far-reaching reforms and announcing the dismissal of five senior Politburo members.

EAST GERMANS' NEW LEADER VOWS FAR-REACHING REFORM AND URGES AN END TO FLIGHT

LEAD:  Stable Jobless Figures Calm Fears of Recession

INSIDE

LEAD: The chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee have asked five Senators whether large campaign contributions they received from the chairman of a failing savings and loan association prompted their intervention with Federal regulators on its behalf.

ETHICS COMMITTEE ASKING 5 SENATORS ABOUT SAVINGS TIE

LEAD: Worried that his campaign is flagging, Rudolph W. Giuliani unleashed two commercials that he hoped would damage David N. Dinkins on the final weekend of the New York City mayoral race.

Giuliani Still Jabbing In Last Days of Race

LEAD: Thousands more East Germans crowded into the West German Embassy here today, and many said their homeland was on the brink of economic collapse as emigration brings labor shortages in the East to crisis proportions.

East Germans Now in Prague Speak of Crisis and Hardship

LEAD: As New Jersey Republicans welcomed the President and Barbara Bush to a pair of rousing campaign rallies today, a last-minute barrage of negative television and radio commercials left the staffs of both candidates for governor arguing over charges of distortion and racism.

Ferocity of Final New Jersey Ads Angers Staffs of Both Candidates

LEAD: In a setback to supporters of offshore drilling, a panel of the National Academy of Sciences has concluded that the Government lacks enough information to assess the environmental consequences of oil and gas drilling off the coasts of California and Florida.

Panel Concludes U.S. Lacks Data To Assess Offshore Drilling Impact

LEAD: Donald White, a 17-year-old honors student, dreamed of going to the University of North Carolina and had planned to take a college entrance examination today. Instead, he will be buried, a victim of random violence.

A Neighborhood Mourns Its Young Dreamer

LEAD:  International 3-6  East Germany's chief urged citizens to stop fleeing the country and to ''put trust in our policy of renewal'' as he announced the retirement of five senior Politburo members. Page 1  East Germans at Bonn's Embassy in Prague say they believe they are leaving a society on the brink of economic ruin.

News Summary

LEAD: ''Put trust in our policy of renewal. Your place is here. We need you.''  - Egon Krenz, the East German leader.  [ 1:6. ]

Quotation of the Day

LEAD: An entry in the Calendar column of The Home Section on Thursday misstated the admission policy for ''Modernism: A Century of Style and Design,'' a show at the Seventh Regiment Armory in Manhattan next Thursday through Nov. 12. Regular admission is $10; children under 16 will be admitted free.

Corrections

LEAD: Gen. Michel Aoun, the Christian military leader, declared Parliament dissolved today in an attempt to foil a presidential election and an Arab peace plan that he considers inadequate.

Christian Commander Bars Beirut Parliament Meeting

LEAD: An article on Wednesday about a dispute over charitable fund raising by The Wall Street Journal's Washington bureau chief referred incorrectly to Jerald F. terHorst of the Ford Motor Company. He is director of national public affairs with responsibility for media relations and issue analysis, not a lobbyist.

LEAD: Security forces clashed today with a crowd in Podujevo and moved to quell other protests by people of Albanian stock in this southern region, where at least three people died in unrest this week. The protests in Podujevo, in Kosovo province, Yugoslavia's poorest region, center on the trial of a popular former Communist chief, Azem Vlasi, and 14 other leaders of the province's ethnic Albanian majority.

Albanian Unrest in Serbia

LEAD: Because of an editing error, an article yesterday about efforts to reduce the capital gains tax misidentified the three bills to which Senate Republicans had planned to attach the proposal. As stated elsewhere in the article, they were a bill to raise the national debt ceiling, one to modify the Medicare catastrophic-coverage program and one to repeal tax rules against discrimination in employer-paid health insurance.

LEAD: The South African Government said today that it may have been the victim of a hoax when it made public what it said were intercepted radio messages asserting that black nationalist guerrillas were entering Namibia.

Pretoria Asserts Hoax in Reports on Namibia

LEAD: Iran will mark the 10th anniversary of the seizure of the United States Embassy in Teheran with a large demonstration organized by one of country's most militant politicians.

Iran Notes Anniversary Of Fall of U.S. Embassy

LEAD: An American-owned oil drilling ship with 97 people aboard capsized early today after a typhoon swept through the Gulf of Thailand with 100-mile-per-hour winds. Barry Lane, a spokesman for the Los Angeles-based Unocal oil company, said six survivors had been rescued in heavy seas about 270 miles south of Bangkok, but that they were Thai fishermen, not crew from the capsized Seacrest drilling vessel.

97 Missing in Capsizing

LEAD: The Bush Administration has sent Congress a looser interpretation of the executive order banning covert involvement in assassinations overseas, William H. Webster, the Director of Central Intelligence, said in a published report.

Bush Aides Reinterpret Order on Coup Roles

LEAD: An article on Wednesday about the argument over sanctions against foreign companies that contribute to the spread of ballistic missiles referred incorrectly to the Assistant Secretary of State for Politico-Military Affairs.

LEAD: The Washington Talk column on Thursday about California's place in the Presidential primaries referred incorrectly to California's allotment of delegates to Presidential nominating conventions. While Republicans have apportioned them winner-take-all, the Democrats have split them among the candidates since 1976.

LEAD: Israeli leaders agreed today to seek additional pledges of American support as a condition for accepting a United States proposal for Israeli-Palestinian talks in Cairo, political analysts said.

Israel Seeking Pledges By U.S. on Cairo Talks

LEAD: Below the reconstructed Long Bar, where the foreign taipans, or big bosses, used to sip their pink gins and chat about the women with gowns slit up the leg past the waist, or about rogues of the underworld like Big-Eared Du and Pockmarked Huang, a symbol of the new Shanghai is taking shape.

Shanghai Journal; New Challenges for a City of Hope and Past Glory

LEAD: Colombian judges and court workers went on strike today, demanding greater protection against a surge of violence related to the drug trade. President Virgilio Barco Vargas renewed his pledge to keep fighting the traffickers.

Colombia Judges and Their Aides Go on Strike to Demand Protection

LEAD: President Alfredo Cristiani said tonight that leftist rebels had broken their word by announcing that they would withdraw from negotiations, but he reiterated his determination to find a political settlement to the Salvadoran civil war.

November 4, 1989

Headlines from November 4, 1989

EAST GERMANS' NEW LEADER VOWS FAR-REACHING REFORM AND URGES AN END TO FLIGHT

INSIDE

ETHICS COMMITTEE ASKING 5 SENATORS ABOUT SAVINGS TIE

Giuliani Still Jabbing In Last Days of Race

East Germans Now in Prague Speak of Crisis and Hardship

Billboard 200

Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814

Girl You Know It's True

Dr. Feelgood

Steel Wheels

Pump

Historical Context for November 4, 1989