October 23, 1993

Hugh Nissenson, 60, a novelist, summed up nicely the dilemma facing his kinetic, involved and hyper-articulate neighborhood on the Upper West Side in this year's mayoral race, even if at one point he had to haul out the word "Weltanschauung." "This is a very difficult decision," Mr. Nissenson said. "I am a lifelong Democrat, a liberal Democrat, and I am instinctively inclined to be with Dinkins, although my feeling is that his competence is limited. I am a Jew -- and it's critical to this -- and I'm unhappy with the way Crown Heights was handled.

The Clinton Administration appears to be at war with itself over policy toward Haiti and the Haitian leader supported by the White House, the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The combatants are the Central Intelligence Agency on one side and the State Department and the National Security Council on the other. The objective: influencing members of Congress, and through them public opinion and the White House, on the question of whether the United States should place its prestige, and possibly the lives of its soldiers, on the line for Father Aristide.

Defying warnings from the Clinton Administration and some military officials, the United Nations Secretary General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, visited Somalia today, where word of his arrival prompted the first menacing street protests in more than two weeks. Traveling without public announcement, Mr. Boutros-Ghali flew from Nairobi to the Somali town of Baidoa and then on to Mogadishu for a meeting with commanders of the United Nations military operation. But he never ventured into the city itself, and remained in a secure area of the Mogadishu airport throughout his two-hour stay in the capital.

Inside the Kroger Supermarket on Delhi Pike here, down Aisle 1 just past a tangle of shopping carts and signs promoting "Double Coupons," between the shelves of baked goods and displays of Cocoa Pebbles and Cheerios, there was a shoppers' special: flu shots. Several hundred people lined up here today to get their vaccinations and their groceries all at once as part of an effort sponsored by the local chapter of the Visiting Nurses Association, an organization for nurses who provide home care. The group is sponsoring vaccination programs in 80 cities around the country; the nurses predict they will eventually vaccinate about 800,000 people.

With the number of drug-related slayings in the nation's capital rising, Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly asked President Clinton today for authority to call up the National Guard to help in policing the city. The President said he was sympathetic to the problem and would seriously consider the request, which was a stark admission by the Mayor that the city, already one of the most heavily policed in the country, was at a loss to slow the slayings on its own.