January 19, 1990

LEAD: The tortured search for a New York City health commissioner took another twist yesterday as two major gay-rights groups and the expert who nominated the leading candidate withdrew their support for him. Mayor David N. Dinkins met last night with members of his search committee but did not reach a decision on the appointment.

LEAD: It was on a Wednesday afternoon a little over two weeks ago when Judy Moriarty, an advocate for the homeless who works at a nonprofit agency here called Gateway Communities, walked up to the door of a soup kitchen and shelter for the homeless on West Main Street. She was going to pick up some meals for homebound AIDS patients too sick to come to the shelter themselves.

LEAD: Stephen Rubin, the publisher and editor in chief of adult books at Bantam Books, was named president and publisher of Doubleday yesterday. He replaced Nancy Evans, who resigned.

LEAD: Schools Chancellor Joseph A. Fernandez mounted a frontal assault yesterday on New York City's decentralized school system, demanding that its 32 local boards clear all candidates for district superintendent with him.

LEAD: WHEN the young clarinetist Don Byron steps on stage at the Knitting Factory tomorrow, he'll be reclaiming the music of a long-forgotten composer working in a long-forgotten genre. The 30-year-old Mr. Byron, along with a 10-piece band, will be performing a concert of pieces by Mickey Katz, a clarinetist, a musical director for Spike Jones, a klezmer musician, a composer and the father of the actor Joel Grey.

LEAD: The Hungarian Government told an international conference on conventional forces in Europe that it wants the Soviet Union to withdraw all its troops from Hungarian soil. And in a meeting with a Soviet official in Gdansk, the Polish union leader, Lech Walesa, demanded the removal of the Soviet garrison in Poland.

LEAD: The nation's top health official, Dr. Louis W. Sullivan, expressed outrage today at the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company for ''deliberately and cynically'' test-marketing a cigarette aimed primarily at blacks, and he assailed the company as ''promoting a culture of cancer.''

LEAD: Soviet troops were apparently bogged down by widespread obstruction today, including airfield and railroad blockades, sabotage, hostage-taking and civil disobedience, as they tried to control the violence in Azerbaijan.

LEAD: Friday ON ICE FOR 50 YEARS

LEAD: Soviet Force in Vietnam Cut Pentagon officials said Moscow had reduced its aircraft at Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam, an American-built installation that has become Moscow's largest overseas naval base. Page A6. Testing Law Overturned A Federal judge overturned a New York law requiring standardized testing services to release the questions and answers from exams.

LEAD: The former director of a preschool and her son were acquitted today on 52 counts of molesting young children at their school, bringing a dramatic end to the longest and costliest criminal trial in American history.

LEAD: Even as Kennedy International Airport embarks on a $3 billion redevelopment, airline officials warn that the plan does not address congestion, especially on the expressways leading to the airport, that threatens its position as the nation's premier international gateway.