November 27, 1990

Robert R. Kiley, the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, who oversaw a vast program to rebuild New York City's subways, bus lines and commuter railroads, resigned yesterday after seven years with the agency. Mr. Kiley, whose resignation was not unexpected, is credited with reversing the deterioration of the nation's largest mass transit system, especially the New York subways, which had been plagued with delays, derailments, graffiti and track fires. Mr. Kiley successfully lobbied the Legislature for an $8.4 billion capital program to overhaul the tracks, switches, signals and stations and to buy new subway cars and buses. But Mr. Kiley leaves with his rebuilding program only half finished and new money in doubt; with service cuts or fare increases virtually inevitable; with ridership levels stagnant or dropping, and with crime and fare-beating at all-time highs. [ Page B7. ]

TO the ancient Chinese, snakes embodied both good and evil, but scorpions symbolized pure wickedness. To the Persians, scorpions were the devil's minions, sent to destroy all life by attacking the testicles of the sacred bull whose blood should have fertilized the universe. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew King Rehoboam threatened to chastise his people, not with ordinary whips, but with scorpions -- dread scourges that sting like a scorpion's tail. The Greeks blamed a scorpion for killing Orion, a lusty giant and celebrated hunter.

Crude oil prices rose yesterday for the third straight trading day. Traders and analysts attributed the gain to the belief that the United Nations Security Council might authorize the use of force against Iraq. Oil for January delivery soared to $34.25 a barrel yesterday morning on the New York Mercantile Exchange, before settling somewhat to close at $32.95, up $1.05. The gain followed an increase of $2.27 a barrel Friday and a 72-cent rise on Wednesday.

Robert R. Kiley, who helped overhaul New York's transit system, resigned as head of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Page B1.

A year ago, James Kustka's legs had swollen so from lymphoma that he had trouble walking. "Fluids were collecting, collecting, collecting. I gained 16 pounds of fluid." Tremendous amounts of cancer in his pelvis lymph glands pressed on the veins that drain the legs. His doctor, Arthur Berken, a cancer specialist, was out of ideas. Traditional chemotherapy no longer worked. "Continuing like this, he'd been better off dead," said the doctor. Then Dr. Berken turned to the National Cancer Institute. "They were kind enough to give me a drug under the compassionate release system." The newly developed drug, fludarabine, has been released to more than 1,000 people in the last year with good results. It is so promising that Seminars in Oncology devoted its October issue to the drug. "We should be encouraged by the exciting clinical progress," wrote Dr. Bruce Cheson of the cancer institute. The Food and Drug Administration's final approval is expected soon.