April 25, 1992

The General Motors Corporation, moving swiftly after a management shake-up, announced yesterday that it would attempt the largest stock offering in American history and took another step in reorganizing its huge vehicle-making operations. It said the goal was to produce better-quality vehicles faster and at less cost. G.M., the world's largest auto maker, said it would offer up to 57.5 million shares of common stock to investors around the world, worth $2.3 billion at current market prices. It plans to issue another $500 million worth of stock to its pension funds.

Several days into a long-planned struggle over abortion rights here, leaders of the national anti-abortion group Operation Rescue took stock of the battlefield and saw less than a victory. The skirmishes in Buffalo did not bode well for their next major target, the Democratic Convention in New York City this July. So they called in reinforcements. "We got the word," said a regional director from the West Coast. The other side was using a strategy to defend the clinics here that had been successfully used in California.

Drug Maker Admits Polluting Bristol-Myers Squibb pleaded guilty to polluting a Syracuse lake and was assessed the largest penalty since the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Page 25. U.N. Chief Rejects Appeal The United Nations chief rejected a call by France, Germany and Poland for a peacekeeping force in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Page 3. Peru Fires On U.S. Aircraft An unarmed Air Force C-130 was hit by gunfire from a Peruvian military plane off the coast, the U.S. Embassy said. One airman is missing. Page 5.

After nearly 75 years of deliberate isolation, Russia is expected to rejoin the world economy next week, when it should be formally accepted as a member of the International Monetary Fund. This is occurring at a critical time for President Boris N. Yeltsin, who must make some politically difficult decisions to keep his vaunted economic reform moving. Without these decisions -- primarily to restructure the bulky industrial economy and thereby bring about the inevitable displacement of thousands of workers -- the reform could fail to go far enough to get the billions of dollars of aid being prepared by the I.M.F. and Western nations. Russian leaders know that to receive the much needed Western aid, they will have to submit to I.M.F. discipline and tighten the collective economic belt ever tighter. Credit Is Expanded But already some serious signs of slippage have occurred in Mr. Yeltsin's program of economic reform. Aware that the sudden rise of prices without a similar rise in income has led to widespread grumbling, the Russian Government in recent weeks has begun to loosen up on its tight-money policy.

In an action that could lead to yet another round of battles over the House bank, the Justice Department has subpoenaed all financial records of every House member's transactions there for a 39-month period from 1988 to 1991. The subpoenas were first disclosed in a letter that Speaker Thomas S. Foley of Washington State sent to his House colleagues today. Mr. Foley did not indicate whether the House leadership would comply with the subpoenas, which were issued on Tuesday.