December 22, 1990

Tens of thousands of poor Iraqis from one of Baghdad's largest Muslim suburbs clambered into cars, buses and cattle trucks at dawn today for an evacuation drill that was part of stepped-up civil defense efforts in the Iraqi capital. At this dusty crossroads 12 miles northeast of Baghdad, thousands of families spread picnic blankets or hunched together in Government-issue tents to demonstrate that should war break out and endanger Iraq's urban centers, the military high command could disperse the population to the countryside.

A sudden surge in the number of Soviet Jewish immigrants arriving in Israel this month may well bring the total of Jews settling here this year to more than 200,000, making it perhaps the largest influx of immigrants in 40 years. The Government has ordered El Al, the national airline, to place every available plane at the disposal of the immigrants, who are gathering at various European transit points in increasing numbers.

There it was, nestled among the secondhand classics, the soft-core pornography and the old National Geographics spread out for sale on blankets and tables along Manhattan's Upper Broadway. The subtitle on the bedraggled bookjacket announced "A Christmas Oratorio," a phrase that makes many people think of orchestras and choirs performing Bach or Handel at Carnegie Hall rather than a thin volume of poetry. But for a small band of faithful readers the long poem in that volume, W. H. Auden's "For the Time Being," remains one of the most powerful expressions of the meaning of Christmas in the 20th century.

There was no fanfare or ceremony today at the Belweder Palace as Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, the last of Eastern Europe's old-guard Communist leaders, stepped down as Poland's President. Nonetheless, this snowswept winter day marked the passing of an epoch in in which the general presided over the long retreat of the Communist Party.

How the F.D.I.C. Works Failures of banks and savings and loans institutions makes it vital to know which accounts are covered by insurance. A guide to F.D.I.C. coverage, Consumer's World, page 52. An S.& L. Plea Bargain Edwin T. McBirney 3d, whose four- year lending spree at Sunbelt Savings in Texas created losses of $3 billion for American taxpayers, has agreed to plead guilty to fraud. Page 35. Apartheid Artifacts Scarce The Natal Museum in South Africa is trying to collect memorabilia of life under apartheid only to find that the ubiquitous signposts of that painful era are vanishing. Page 3.