May 31, 1993

At the beach, everything is in flux. The tides rise and fall. The currents turn. The dunes shift. The crowds come and go. In big and small ways, the vistas change. Nothing, it seems, is forever. Except, maybe, for that silver-haired guy over there on the lifeguard stand.

Senator David L. Boren of Oklahoma, who holds the crucial swing vote that could make or break President Clinton's economic plan, said today that the odds had greatly improved that a compromise he could support could be worked out. Senator Boren's new position almost guarantees enactment of legislation to lower the budget deficit, said Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, chairman of the Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over much of the Clinton plan.

Up to 10 million Americans will visit the old Oregon Trail this summer, walking a few steps in the West's best-known path, touching the hardened dirt of the deep wagon ruts like Braille readers of history. As people look for clues to their common past, many will arrive at this quiet place on a rye-grass plain just west of town. It was here that for nearly 12 years two Presbyterian missionaries, Dr. Marcus Whitman and his wife, Narcissa, tried to bring Christianity and New England-style agriculture to a once-prosperous band of Cayuse Indians.

It is one of the oldest rites of government: when things are not going well, when the leader is in trouble, a member of his retinue must be sacrificed. At least the wolves will be silenced for a while, and with a bit of skill and a lot of luck, the direction of the whole enterprise can be changed. So it was with President Clinton this weekend. The problem, the President has been saying for weeks, is that his program has not been effectively communicated to the public. So there was a certain logic in shoving aside George Stephanopoulos, the young communications director, in favor of David R. Gergen, the old Nixon and Reagan hand, however embarrassing such a symbol of the established order must have been to an apostle of change.

Medical Scandal in China China is investigating a medical scandal involving a factory that rewashed disposable hypodermic needles and sold them as new. Page 3. Hopes for Summer Travel The travel industry is expecting record numbers of Americans to travel this summer. Page 8. Arrest in Compactor Death Texas troopers arrested a New Jersey man in the death of a boy found in a Brooklyn trash compactor. Page 25.