February 1, 1992

President Bush met with Prime Minister Li Peng of China today for the first time since Mr. Li presided over Beijing's crackdown on democracy campaigners in 1989. Mr. Bush went ahead with the chilly, 20-minute encounter despite critics' charges that even a brief meeting would buttress the international standing of the Chinese Government and Mr. Li. The President contends that such contacts are worthwhile as a means of tempering Beijing's behavior through dialogue. Hundreds of people protested against the meeting outside.

A commission appointed by Mayor David N. Dinkins gave him proposals yesterday to remake the city's homeless shelter system and immediately ran into criticism from major officials in his administration. The officials, including Deputy Mayor Cesar A. Perales, questioned the practicality and cost of several major commission proposals. Some officials criticized the plans to have most new shelters run by nonprofit organizations, to create a new agency to oversee the system and to use rent vouchers to help homeless families pay for apartments.

Mayor David N. Dinkins's former campaign finance chairman and longtime political adviser was charged by Federal officials and a state grand jury yesterday with stealing $158,000 from the Mayor's re-election fund by writing 29 checks to himself. Federal and state prosecutors charged that the former campaign official, Arnold I. Biegen, a Manhattan lawyer, engaged in a conspicuous theft that was followed by a desperate attempt at a cover-up. They described several tense days last month in which other top campaign aides demanded financial records from Mr. Biegen, who first said they were lost, then gave them up, and finally sneaked into the office of another campaign official and took some of them back. Unresolved Mystery The charges, which came in the form of a criminal complaint by United States Attorney Otto G. Obermaier and a grand jury indictment sought by the Manhattan District Attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, do not resolve the mystery of why Mr. Biegen, by all accounts a highly paid lawyer sophisticated in the ways of complex financial transactions, would have attempted so blatant a theft.

"Perhaps for the first time ever, there is now a real chance to put an end to despotism and to dismantle the totalitarian order whatever shape it may take." -- PRESIDENT BORIS N. YELTSIN. [ 4:3. ]

PEACE SUMMIT AT U.N. Proclaiming renewed hopes for a safer world, leaders of the 15 nations on the United Nations Security Council met jointly and said they would devote their energies to preserving peace. They asked the new Secretary General to draft proposals to make the U.N. a potent peacemaker in trouble spots worldwide. 1