October 15, 1991

In 1985, the Independence Bank was a solid little community bank, catering mainly to homeowners and small businesses, and rarely attracting any notice outside the San Fernando Valley. Today after years of heedless growth, reportedly under the stewardship of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, the California bank is reeling from losses. The Federal Reserve Board is seeking $20 million in penalties from its former chairman. The Justice Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other Government agencies are sifting through the bank's records to investigate suspicious transactions. Other B.C.C.I. Acquisitions "This bank was destroyed by a management that simply ran it into the ground," said Fulvio Dobrich, the current chairman of Independence Bank, which is based here.

With the searing interrogation of Judge Clarence Thomas and Anita F. Hill at an inconclusive end, Senate support for the Supreme Court nominee showed no overall movement in either direction today and the battle turned to which side would control the remaining hours of public debate. Professor Hill, whose veracity, character and even sanity were questioned by Republican Senators, appeared before reporters and supporters in Norman, Okla., where she teaches law, to denounce the attacks on her and repeat that her accusations of sexual harassment against Judge Thomas were true.

After three days of televised inquiry into an accusation that Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed an aide, Americans still favor the judge's confirmation to the Supreme Court by a ratio of 2 to 1, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll. The poll, taken Sunday night, shows that a majority of Americans remain skeptical of the accusations made against Judge Thomas by his former aide, Anita F. Hill. More than half of those surveyed said they believed that the account of sexual harassment offered by Ms. Hill, now a law professor at the University of Oklahoma, was "probably not true." The poll was taken after the Sunday afternoon testimony of four witnesses who said Professor Hill had spoken to them about her experiences with Judge Thomas.

Although many on Capitol Hill have stepped up to bouquets of microphones in the last few days to proclaim themselves seekers of truth in the harrowing contest between Anita F. Hill and Clarence Thomas, very few people in Washington were seeking truth at all. As in all contests in the capital, the parties and the interest groups had already staked out their positions and were spending all their time trying to manipulate the process that they spoke of with words of such concern and reverence. A Contest About Power The scalding contest was not only about race and sex, and women and men. It was about power, and who knows how to use it more effectively. The answer so far is, still, the Republicans.

"EMOTIONS are contagious," wrote the Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung. His observation is now being borne out and given precision by scientific studies of the subtle interplay of moods as they are passed from person to person. The new data depict moods as akin to social viruses, with some people having a natural ability to transmit them while others are more susceptible to contagion. And moods seem to perpetuate themselves by leading a person to do things that reinforce the feeling, no matter how unpleasant it may be.