February 14, 1991

In 1972, the East German Government took over Heinz Janetzki's flourishing medical centrifuge company in a broad campaign to eliminate private industry. Now, Mr. Janetzki and thousands of other victims of that campaign, emboldened by German unification, are fighting to take back their companies. Their struggle is more than just settling old scores. It is also a closely watched barometer of economic recovery in eastern Germany. Mr. Janetzki's old company, Janetzki G.m.b.H., has 180 workers who build centrifuges used in medical laboratories that do blood testing. It is exactly the type of business that economic experts say must quickly be put back into private hands to give eastern Germany's shattered economy a chance at rapid reconstruction.

Mayor David N. Dinkins moved yesterday to cope with what he has called the biggest problem of his administration -- a failure to communicate effectively with New Yorkers -- announcing that his press secretary had resigned and holding his first Town Hall meeting with the public. Mr. Dinkins and his press secretary, Albert Scardino, said they would part company after a tempestuous 14-month tenure in which Mr. Scardino's attempts to be the chief executive's main fire extinguisher just as often produced flames that burned them both. His departure, effective March 15, is the first shift in the Mayor's top City Hall staff since he took office.The move was more than just a personnel change. The Mayor and his aides have repeatedly contended that their actions have been perceived as inept or fumbling because they have not adequately explained what they were doing or why, and that Mr. Scardino was as much a symptom as a cause of Mr. Dinkins's difficulties."I think we've said we've got to get our message out better," said Deputy Mayor Bill Lynch, Mr. Dinkins's chief political aide. "The vehicles we've used haven't gotten the message out clearly, so we're going to the people." Round-Table Discussions Following through on an idea his aides first suggested last spring, and repeated last summer amid public concern over crime and the Mayor's response to it, Mr. Dinkins went last night to Forest Hills, Queens, to hold the first in what they say will be a series of town meetings, informal question-and-answer sessions often used by former Mayor Edward I. Koch.

In the four weeks of the Persian Gulf war, almost every day has brought good news for the generals at the American headquarters here. Like their civilian bosses in Washington, the generals have warned again and again, however, that nasty surprises would turn up. Today, they were proved right. An attack on what the generals described as a command and communications bunker was paraded by the Iraqis as a wanton attack on a bomb shelter for civilians in which hundreds of people, mostly women and children, were killed.

Encouraged by early consumer response to fares as low as $249 round trip from New York to London, British Airways made a new effort yesterday to persuade the United States Transportation Department to allow it to extend the sale of reduced fares for travel during the peak summer season. Transportation Secretary Samuel K. Skinner said Tuesday that British Airways had to stop selling discounted fares for summer travel by midnight tomorrow. The airline wants to extend the offer date to March 15. But whichever date becomes final, customers who have bought their low-priced tickets by then can still fly between Britain and the United States from April 15 through Oct. 31.

After weeks of trying to minimize American military casualties to preserve domestic backing for the Persian Gulf war, President Bush is confronting the prospect that civilian casualties in Iraq could threaten international support for the continuing bombing campaign. Administration officials and Western diplomats said today that a rising civilian toll, along with anti-American demonstrations in the Middle East and diplomatic overtures by the Soviet Union and other countries, could bring pressure to bear on Mr. Bush to advance the start of a ground offensive.