October 10, 1992

The candidates are rehearsing talking points on everything from Arkansas fowl to the spotted owl. But it is an edgy time for the men who will meet in St. Louis on Sunday night, because they know that they cannot fully prepare for the most important, least tangible dimension of Presidential debates. On the surface, Presidential campaigns are a din of competing issues and a display of contrasting styles. But there is also a subliminal battle, played out in rituals like debates and photo opportunities, in which the candidates strive to show that they are superior in the knightly virtues of temperance, loyalty and courage.

Central Intelligence Agency officials have told Congress that, at the urging of the Justice Department, they deliberately withheld information from Federal prosecutors in Atlanta about a multibillion dollar bank fraud involving Iraq, Government officials said today. The disclosure contrasts with statements made on Tuesday by the C.I.A's chief lawyer, who said the misinformation was an honest error.

Gov. Bill Clinton's doctors say he is in good health, but Mr. Clinton has been less forthcoming about his health than any Presidential nominee in the last 20 years. Although three doctors have written brief letters about Mr. Clinton's health, he has not provided fuller details, has not allowed his principal doctor to speak to reporters about his medical history and has declined to agree to an interview on the subject.

When President Bush toured the smoldering streets of Los Angeles in May, he called on Congress to establish enterprise zones around the country to attack urban blight. But nearly seven months later, he is about to veto a tax bill that includes significant tax breaks for businesses that invest in 25 impoverished inner-city neighborhoods. The legislation passed Thursday would establish far fewer zones than Mr. Bush had hoped for but would enact several tax provisions the Administration never liked.

Dr. Howard Fillit has come up with a low-cost way to fend off, and even reverse, what most people view simply as the inevitable ravages of age: He feeds people. Up to 40 percent of the scores of very sick, elderly patients Dr. Fillit sees at Mount Sinai Medical Center are malnourished, he said, even though they -- and their families and nursing aides, when they are lucky enough to have either -- usually do not realize it. In many cases, he said, their bad diet has caused, or at least severely worsened, their pneumonia, their heart trouble or even their dementia.