December 21, 1992

Most of those involved agree: it is one of the highest-stakes games of television poker ever played. And nobody yet knows who's bluffing. The name of the game: $16 million David Letterman stud. Two weeks ago, when CBS pushed that huge pile of chips on the table, in the form of an offer to NBC's longtime late-night star, NBC seemed certain to fold its hand quietly and conserve its money to fight another day. But the pressure on NBC to stay in the game and keep Mr. Letterman, no matter what the cost, seems to be increasing every day.

Ninety percent of the passengers using Kennedy International Airport get there like this: sweating and cursing and praying in a cab or car as they fight traffic and the clock. By the end of the century, they may have another choice: entering an electric train in Manhattan and arriving at Kennedy 37 minutes later, after stops at La Guardia Airport and Shea Stadium and a smooth, silent ride over the rooftops of Queens and the jammed roadways they used to use.

New Charge of Bias A black man and a group of Hasidim are involved in a confrontation in Brooklyn -- and give vastly different accounts of what happened. Page B1. 2 Held in Principal's Slaying Two men sought in connection with the shooting death of a grade-school principal surrendered at a Brooklyn church. Page B3. Unusual Family Reunion A pilot who had defected to the United States returned to Cuba to stage a daring rescue of his wife and children. Page A14. Pressure to Keep Letterman NBC may decide to oust Jay Leno from the "Tonight" show to keep its other late-night star. Page D1.

A 41-year-old black man told the police that he was severely beaten without provocation on a street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, early yesterday by 10 to 20 Hasidic men, some shouting racial slurs. The police listed it as a bias crime, and Mayor David N. Dinkins called it another case of racially motivated violence in a troubled city. But later in the day the police said they were looking into reports by Hasidic community leaders that gave a different interpretation to the case. These suggested that the attack had stemmed from an attempt by the black man, Robert Johnson, to steal a car and that a group of Hasidim had chased and caught him and that he had been injured in their efforts to subdue him.

A polltaker for Milan Panic, who has vowed to end the war in Bosnia, said Mr. Panic and Slobodan Milosevic, Serbia's militant leader, ran so closely in balloting for a new president that they will have a runoff. Article, page A10.

It was Steven J. Ross who built Warner Communications into an entertainment powerhouse, and it was Mr. Ross who cobbled together its blockbuster merger with Time Inc. in 1990. With the death yesterday of Mr. Ross, who was 65, the task of holding together two disparate corporate cultures at Time Warner Inc. falls to his successor, Gerald M. Levin. "It was never a unified family," said Dennis Leibowitz, a media industry analyst for Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. "It was like stepsisters and stepbrothers. They never really fused together as one company. The question is whether or not Mr. Levin can pull it all together."

The Media Business Steven J. Ross died at age 65. He created Time Warner, the world's largest media and entertainment company. [ A1. ] Mr. Ross's successor is not inheriting a unified corporate family. [ D1. ] NBC is under pressure to drop Jay Leno to keep David Letterman from defecting to CBS. Television: Bill Carter. [ D1. ]

For the underground army that tries to figure out the arcane world of the National Football League's playoffs, yesterday was the day of days. This much was certain (or so it seemed) on the next-to-last weekend of the regular season: Minnesota (without Herschel Walker) clinched the National Conference Central Division title by defeating Pittsburgh. Philadelphia (with Herschel Walker) guaranteed itself a wild-card playoff spot by defeating Washington. And Miami guaranteed another Don Shula appearance in the playoffs last night by defeating the Jets. These are solid, year-in, year-out playoff contenders.

A week after the worst flooding in 30 years clawed the New Jersey and Long Island coasts and leveled sand dunes, experts say the already precarious beaches are extremely vulnerable at many points, exposed to dangerous new flooding from even average winter storms. From the Hamptons on eastern Long Island to Sandy Hook and Long Beach Island on the New Jersey coast, the four-day storm swept away millions of cubic yards of sand from beaches that had already been considered alarmingly narrow and undernourished for a decade or more.

Despite a personal appeal by Prime Minister John Major of Britain to President Bush to approve a proposed alliance between British Airways and the USAir Group, both supporters and opponents of the deal said today that it was increasingly likely that the United States would block the transaction. An aide to Mr. Major, speaking on condition that he not be identified, said the disagreements had not been resolved. "I still think one has to be downbeat about it," he added.

For decades, the Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr. was an outspoken critic of American military actions abroad. As chaplain at Yale University, then as pastor of the Riverside Church in Manhattan and finally as the leader of a group promoting disarmament, he opposed the war in Vietnam, American support for the contras in Nicaragua, the invasions of Grenada and Panama, and the war in the Persian Gulf. Today, despite misgivings, Dr. Coffin backs the presence of American forces in Somalia, and he is at least willing to contemplate military measures against Serbian forces in Bosnia.

Steven J. Ross, who built a family funeral parlor business into Time Warner Inc., the world's largest media and entertainment company, died yesterday in Los Angeles. He was 65 years old. His death was caused by complications arising from his prostate cancer, from which he had suffered for several years, a company spokesman said.