June 18, 1992

The Rev. John H. Walsted tiptoed around a clicking seismograph in the sanctuary of his church, Christ Episcopal on Staten Island. Since the blasts began in November, granite blocks have shifted; a fissure opened in the majestic church's north wall; a crack split the belly of the baby Jesus in a stained glass window too precious to replace. All this, he believes, has rumbled up from work on a waterway 3,500 feet from his 88-year-old church -- part of a dredging project billed as vital to the economy of the New York region. Like most dredging projects, this one is as massive as it is mundane: workers are blasting at the bedrock in the Kill Van Kull and Newark Bay to deepen the shipping channels from 35 to 40 feet.

Stock prices fell sharply yesterday, shaken by domestic political concerns, big falls in markets abroad and tremors linked to the expiration of options tomorrow. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 41.73 points, or 1.3 percent, to 3,287.76, its lowest close since April 13. On top of a 25-point drop on Tuesday, the Dow is now down 2 percent in two days.

With the American economy about to wrap up its fifth straight quarter of expansion, the economic priests who consecrate the beginnings and ends of business cycles are likely to convene sometime this summer to declare the nation's ninth postwar recession officially over. Many economists believe the dating committee will declare recovery to have begun as long ago as the spring of 1991. But it is only now that the evidence of sustained upturn can be said to look persuasive enough to invite confident declaration.

Just inside the main entrance of Detsky Mir, a Government-owned department store, the vast lobby has been turned into a glass-enclosed showroom for shiny new Fords. What is striking is not the display -- there are a dozen like it in Moscow -- but that owning a foreign car has suddenly become so acceptable in Russia that even the state encourages the practice. Aside from providing this new prestige, the influx of foreign cars along with many other imported items is helping to satisfy consumer demand, easing social tension at a time when Russian production is falling and domestic goods are in painfully short supply.

In his unending search for elements that wreak havoc on the political system, Ross Perot, the Texas billionaire, seems to have discovered another villain: other people's money. Mr. Perot's undeclared bid for the Presidency has been fueled in part by widespread public disgust with the influence wielded by corporate and labor political action committees that underwrite so many election campaigns, particularly at the Congressional level. By promising to spend $100 million or more of his own money on his campaign, Mr. Perot holds himself out as the one candidate who will not have to genuflect before the altar of special moneyed interests.