December 11, 1992

The Secretary General wants U.S. troops to stay in Somalia until they disarm the warlords, remove mines, and restore order. Page A23.

What began as a provincial battle over what is taught about homosexuality in a small patch of Queens has mushroomed into a battle over the survival of the Chancellor and perhaps the way New York City governs its schools. On Wednesday night, in its harshest rebuff ever of Schools Chancellor Joseph A. Fernandez, the seven-member Board of Education, by a surprising 6-to-0 vote, reinstated a Queens school board that had adamantly refused to adopt any multicultural curriculum that promotes respect and appreciation of gay people.

They couldn't be more different: James D. Robinson 3d, the patrician, Harvard-educated son of a leading Atlanta banking executive who spent a lifetime honing his manners, his image and his physique, and Harvey Golub, the bearish, chain-smoking son of a struggling small-business owner who once flunked out of college but parlayed street smarts, moxie and hands-on dexterity into a career as a corporate repairman, always on call. If Mr. Robinson is the master of the mansion, the sleek personification of American Express, Mr. Golub is the plumber he frantically dials when all the pipes burst in subzero weather at 3 A.M. But now that a once-docile board has decided to usher Mr. Robinson out as chairman and chief executive of the American Express Company, with the stock price and earnings depressed, Mr. Golub, the company's president of 16 months, is the leading candidate to take over the whole estate. The apparent favorite of Mr. Robinson, who is at least nominally leading the search, Mr. Golub has also won the allegiance of Wall Street. Some analysts there are prodding the board to crown him right away instead of implying, by a prolonged search, that Mr. Golub is not quite good enough.

The Allstate Insurance Company yesterday increased its estimated losses from Hurricane Andrew by more than 40 percent, to $2.5 billion. The news appeared to portend even bleaker hurricane losses for the property casualty industry. The Allstate move prompted Moody's Investors Service Inc. to lower its financial strength ratings for Allstate and some credit ratings for Allstate's parent company, Sears, Roebuck & Company.

WHO wouldn't want to go back to the New York City of 1954, the year celebrated in the new musical "My Favorite Year"? As Benjy Stone (Evan Pappas), the show's young hero, reminds the audience, 1954 was the time of beefy Buicks and a hit parade dominated by Kitty Kallen. A time when Fifth Avenue was a two-way street and "everything had chlorophyll in it." Most of all, as far as "My Favorite Year" is concerned, it was the Golden Age of live television, as exemplified by "The King Kaiser Comedy Cavalcade," a weekly 90-minute NBC variety show that resembles Sid Caesar's "Your Show of Shows" and for which Benjy is the bright-eyed freshman gag writer. "My Favorite Year," which opened last night at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, not only wants to re-create that halcyon time, from its Breck girls to its Formica decor, but it also wants to do so in the wonderfully retro Broadway musical-comedy style of the same period. Nineteen-fifty-four was also the year of "The Pajama Game," whose Bob Fosse choreography this show passingly mocks. From its opening number, a sort of "Comedy Tonight" set in a television studio, "My Favorite Year" offers the happy promise of a new musical in the hilarious manner of "Pajama Game" successors like "Bye Bye Birdie" and "Little Me" written by "Show of Shows" alumni.