October 16, 1991

In his last full day as the nation's senior banking regulator, L. William Seidman said he would have left more than a year ago had he not been assailed by the White House chief of staff, John H. Sununu. "Absolutely no question about it," Mr. Seidman said as he prepared to relinquish the chairmanship of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Resolution Trust Corporation. Referring to his visit to the White House in the spring of 1990 and the personality clash with Mr. Sununu, who sought very publicly then to push him out the door, Mr. Seidman said, "I went over there with the purpose of arranging an amicable, friendly and smooth transition."

Three weeks after being widely criticized for spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of students' money on items like limousines, luxury hotel rooms and a job for his twin sister, the chairman of the City University of New York's student government has been re-elected by a two-vote margin. But his opponents -- who said they will challenge the election -- called the results suspicious because the winning ballot was found by a supporter of the chairman, Jean LaMarre, under a pad of papers after all the other ballots were counted. They also said that Mr. LaMarre's sister, Elizabeth, who is paid $26,000 a year as Mr. LaMarre's personal assistant, was seen handling the ballots before she was supposed to. Ms. LaMarre was one of the students who counted the ballots from the election, in which a two-vote margin was needed for victory. 'A Case of Sour Grapes' "This is just a sad day for CUNY," said Kim Ray, who ran against Mr. LaMarre. Ms. Ray, a 25-year-old president of the Day Student Government at Hunter College, said delegates from several campuses, including Hunter, City College, the College of Staten Island and Borough of Manhattan Community College, are filing appeals.

Preschool children in the New York City region, particularly poor ones, have a worse record of immunization against measles, tuberculosis and other diseases than children in poorer countries like Grenada, Uganda and Mexico, state and city health officials say. They say that the difference can be attributed to aggressive government campaigns to eradicate communicable diseases in third world countries and the lack of an organized campaign in the United States.

Good news continued to flow from Wall Street yesterday, as two of the nation's largest brokerage houses reported strong earnings. Merrill Lynch & Company, the nation's largest brokerage house, announced that its third-quarter earnings had more than tripled over the period last year. And Paine Webber Inc. reported that its earnings in the quarter increased fourfold.

After the vote, the gloomy feminist contingent on Capitol Hill concluded that Clarence Thomas triumphed because he came across as more of a victim than Anita F. Hill did. Many Senators told disappointed lobbyists for the coalition of civil rights groups and women's groups opposing Judge Thomas that it was not so much Professor Hill's credibility that determined the outcome as a range of other issues. Everyone knew what "other issues" meant.