December 27, 1990

For Pan Am and T.W.A., the chess game continues. The management of Pan American World Airways yesterday sent a letter to Carl C. Icahn, chairman of Trans World Airlines, seeking to clarify whether he was still willing to pursue his $375 million takeover offer. Mr. Icahn said in a telephone interview that if Pan Am sought bankruptcy protection his offer of $375 million to buy out the shareholders would no longer be in effect.

Issuing his first public rebuke of Mayor David N. Dinkins, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo warned today that New York City's finances were running out of control. He said the city might be heading toward a takeover of its finances by the state oversight panel created during the mid-1970's fiscal crisis. He made the comments as he cleared the way for New York City's teachers to receive a 5.5 percent pay increase by approving legislation that would allow the teachers' pension fund to finance part of the raise.

At 1:30 P.M. yesterday, the 40 high school students from Cleveland were standing together with their seven chaperones on Fifth Avenue, looking eagerly around at the tall buildings and all the people. It was, for most of them, their first trip to New York. Now they were about to enter one of the world's most famous toy stores, F. A. O. Schwarz. "All right, you've got 20 minutes!" one chaperone, Diana Vance, called out. "Twenty minutes!"

HAPPY New Year. The year is 1939, by Michael Smith's count. Mr. Smith has just finished decorating a new apartment in a 1938 building in Chelsea. The 1939 RCA television in his living room was one of the first in the United States. (It works.) The matches in the ashtray in his bedroom say "The Stork Club." (They light.) His parakeet, Jazz, lives in a streamlined cage. (It tweets, or maybe it scats.)

Warnings from some military commanders that American troops will not be ready for action by Jan. 15 will not constrain President Bush from ordering military action if he thinks it is necessary, senior Administration officials said today. The White House was aware of the military's concerns about readiness when it agreed at the United Nations to a resolution fixing a Jan. 15 deadline for Iraq to leave Kuwait or face the use of force by the American-led military coalition, the officials said.