January 14, 1993

David Letterman is all but certain to accept CBS's offer to move his show from NBC, probably starting in late summer, officials at both networks said yesterday. The end of Mr. Letterman's negotiations with NBC set off a storm of conflicting reports about how far the network had gone in its effort to keep Mr. Letterman. Four executives close to the talks said yesterday that as recently as last weekend NBC had discussed with Mr. Letterman's representatives the possibility of having him replace Jay Leno as host of "Tonight." They said Mr. Letterman rejected the idea because NBC was not willing to match the financial arrangements of the CBS offer.

After President-elect Bill Clinton expressed disapproval, his choice for Commerce Secretary, Ronald H. Brown, today abruptly canceled a lavish inauguration party planned in his honor by some of the largest American and Japanese corporations. Besides criticizing the party, Mr. Clinton said in an interview in Little Rock, Ark., that he was considering whether to impose more stringent ethics rules on Mr. Brown by requiring him to remove himself from issues involving former clients for more than a year after taking office. Mr. Brown has set a standard for recusing himself that is significantly less rigorous than the rules voluntarily adopted by the Bush Administration.

Douglas LaChance, president of the newspaper deliverers' union in New York City, has held secret partnerships in nonunion delivery companies, used strong-arm tactics against newspapers and competing companies to enrich himself, and has undercut his own union, prosecutors charged yesterday. Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan District Attorney, announced a grand jury indictment against Mr. LaChance, a convicted felon who faces a possible return to prison for a parole violation, and four other people and two companies, charging them with criminal conspiracy, restraint of trade, extortion and other offenses.

For the first time in 25 years, the Labor Department is revamping its monthly employment survey, and initial tests of the new questionnaire indicate that the United States has hundreds of thousands of people now listed as full-time workers who in fact hold only part-time jobs. The tests also suggest that once the new survey replaces the present one, starting in January 1994, the unemployment rate may rise slightly. That is partly because unemployment is probably greater than the current survey can capture, and the new, more accurate one is likely to capture at least some of the additional unemployment, Government officials said.

Western Germany's economy posted its worst annual growth rate in a decade in 1992, as high domestic interest rates, the global economic downturn and turbulence in European currency markets caused a recession. Western Germany's gross national product expanded only eight-tenths of a percent last year after adjustment for inflation, according to figures released today by the German statistics office. That is the poorest showing by Europe's biggest economy since 1982, when it contracted 1.1 percent. In 1991, the economy grew 3.6 percent.