September 28, 1991

Top officials of major league baseball expressed frustration and alarm yesterday at the failure of many teams to hire and promote members of minority groups for management positions on the field and in the front office. The officials, Commissioner Fay Vincent and the National League president, Bill White, voiced their concerns on a day when two teams, the New York Mets and the Detroit Tigers, appointed new general managers, both of them white, and two days after Vincent and White attended the first organizational meeting of the Colorado Rockies, one of two new franchises set to join the National League in 1993.

At his second meeting in three days with his economic advisers, President Bush today asked banking regulators to review their procedures to make sure they were not inhibiting banks from making loans, White House officials said. The President and his advisers are clearly concerned about the slow pace of the economy almost a year before the Presidential election. But because of the large budget deficit, expected to be well over $300 billion in the next fiscal year, they do not have the leeway to cut taxes or increase spending, the usual steps for an Administration facing a sour economy in an election year. Pressing a Point That is one reason they are focusing on bank regulations, and today they called two of the nation's top bank regulators to an otherwise routine meeting of the President's Economic Policy Council. The regulators were Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, and William Taylor, who has been nominated to be chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Concern over the security of the Soviet stockpile of short-range nuclear weapons was a principal motivation behind President Bush's new arms control initiative, Bush Administration officials said today. During the failed coup attempt in Moscow, Administration officials played down their concerns that the thousands of tactical nuclear weapons spread throughout the Soviet Union could fall into the wrong hands.

A Close Call at 5,600 Feet A jetliner and a small plane came within 50 feet of colliding near Chicago. The incident underscored a lasting aviation problem. Page 7. Punitive AIDS Bill Beaten Congress killed a measure that sought prison for doctors doing invasive procedures who had the AIDS virus and did not tell patients. Page 7. Oona O'Neill Chaplin Dies Oona O'Neill Chaplin, daughter of Eugene O'Neill and wife of Charlie Chaplin, is dead at 66. Page 27.

Starting on Monday, the suggested newsstand price of The Times on weekdays will be increased to 50 cents in New York City, within 75 miles of the city, and on all of Long Island. The change is prompted by increasing costs. The Sunday price will not change, nor will the weekday price outside the 75-mile area.