August 13, 1992

After weeks of reports, President Bush is expected to announce today that Secretary of State Baker will direct his campaign. Page A20.

NEW YORK CITY CROSSING THE BRIDGE TO BUY DRUGS There were a jeweler, a carpet layer and an electrical engineer, a pipe fitter, a college student and an auditor at the Internal Revenue Service. There were men and women, from 18 to 63 years old, most of them from the suburbs of New Jersey, and all of them arrested for buying drugs in Washington Heights. In all, 49 people were arrested and 36 vehicles seized in a 12-hour undercover operation intended to send a clear message to residents on both sides of the Hudson River. B3. POLICE SERGEANT RETURNED TO PAYROLL A police sergeant indicted on charges of hitting a Brooklyn community leader and beating her son was restored to the police payroll. B2. A NEPHEW'S TESTIMONY In a crucial and bitter day of testimony, the nephew of Alejandro Henriquez said in court that his uncle, sitting in jail, asked him to call the police and news organizations to convince them that the killer of a woman and two girls was still on the loose. B3. An Amtrak train on its way from Penn Station to Newport News, Va., derailed, injuring 70. B10. REGION PROVIDING HELP FOR THE ABUSED Though wife beating seems improbable amid the beachfront mansions of East Hampton, it is serious enough that the town has taken the highly unusual step of financing a private shelter for battered women, one of only three shelters for all of Long Island. A woman named Martha is one of those who have already benefited from the community's concern. Before turning to the shelter she lived through a menacing marriage punctuated with abuse. B7. ACCREDITATION FOR LAW SCHOOL The transfer of the University of Bridgeport's law school to Quinnipiac College was approved by the American Bar Association as it granted provisional accreditation for the school, now known as the Bridgeport School of Law at Quinnipiac College. The law school seceded from the University of Bridgeport last winter. B7. A NEW MECCA FOR ARTISTS With its picturesque town green, Litchfield, Conn., has always been attractive to tourists. But in the last year, it has also become a center for artists, as more than a half dozen galleries and an active artists' guild have opened. Litchfield Journal, B7. FERRARO TO START SHOWING TV ADS Hoping to solidify her lead in the polls and force her rivals to spend precious funds, former Representative Geraldine A. Ferraro has become the first candidate for the Democratic Senate nomination to broadcast television advertisements. B4. The Reverend Al Sharpton shows up in FBI videotapes with a Genovese capo. B14. SEEKING TO SAVE PAST SPLENDOR In 1939, moviegoers sat mesmerized before the 50-foot screen at the Loew's Jersey Theater as Atlanta burned nightly in "Gone With the Wind." Last week, a new generation of viewers gathered in the lobby of the now-closed movie palace, where a $4 million fund-raising effort is under way to save the 63-year-old theater. B4. Chronicle B4

A Federal panel said yesterday that scientific research by American business was in a perilous state of stagnation and recommended tough steps to strengthen industry against foreign rivals, including a series of actions by the Federal Government. While many experts have issued such calls to action, this one is unusual for its breadth and authority. Its author, the National Science Board, is the policy-making arm of the National Science Foundation, a Federal agency that supports general science research in the United States and is responsible for monitoring the nation's overall scientific health.

International The U.S., Canada and Mexico formally announced a free trade pact that will create a market of 370 million people producing $6 trillion worth of goods and services each year -- surpassing the European Community. Leaders portrayed it as an opportunity for greater economic growth for all three nations, and business generally cheered it -- with some exceptions. [ Page A1. ] Mexico celebrated the pact as transporting it from poverty and protectionism into life as a developed land. [ D4. ]

After 20 years of sorting through garbage cans and landfills, the archaeologist William L. Rathje has accumulated precious memories. There are the 40-year-old hot dogs, perfectly preserved beneath dozens of strata of waste, and the head of lettuce still in pristine condition after 25 years. But the hands-down winner, the one that still makes him shake his head in disbelief, is an order of guacamole he recently unearthed. Almost as good as new, it sat next to a newspaper apparently thrown out the same day. The date was 1967. The guacamole that would not die reinforces a point that Mr. Rathje and his co-author, Cullen Murphy, make in "Rubbish!" recently published by HarperCollins ($23). The garbage dumped in landfills tends not to biodegrade. It becomes mummified.