October 27, 1993

Every Tuesday, the Senate Democrats and Republicans talk about the great issues of the day in separate private policy luncheons. Today, they talked about sex. More specifically, the senators discussed Senator Bob Packwood's diary and the Oregon Republican's none-too-subtle suggestion on the Senate floor on Monday that if he was forced to surrender it to the Ethics Committee it could reveal the sexual dalliances of other lawmakers.

The Clinton Administration today canceled plans to impose trade sanctions next Monday against Japan after Tokyo agreed to open its public sector construction market to international competition. Mickey Kantor, the United States trade representative, announced this morning that the Administration would not proceed with the sanctions, at least for now, because the Japanese Government had promised to eliminate the practice of restricting the bidding on construction contracts to a few companies. The sanctions would have barred Japanese companies from bidding on some Federal construction projects.

The informer at the center of the Government's case in the plot to bomb New York City landmarks had a volatile relationship with his handlers, often quarreling with F.B.I. agents who used him to infiltrate a group of Muslim extremists who have been charged in the plot, according to transcripts of secretly taped conversations. Transcripts of the hundreds of hours of tapes -- which were recorded by the informer, Emad A. Salem, without the knowledge of the F.B.I. -- were distributed to defense lawyers yesterday. Although Judge Michael B. Mukasey ordered the lawyers to keep them secret, a copy of the transcripts was made available to The New York Times.

They have become known as the Recession Governors, the executives of big industrial states who inherited budgets and payrolls that were bloated by the boom years of the 1980's and revenues that are starved by the lean times that came with the 1990's. And the first among them in office, and the first to face a review by the voters, is Jim Florio of New Jersey, "We were first across the barbed wire," the Governor said recently, choosing a grim simile of trench warfare, to describe the politics of governing in a recession.

Paramount Communications Inc. announced yesterday that it would join forces with Chris-Craft Industries to start a fifth national television network. The proposed broadcasting network does not appear to be directly linked to the battle between Viacom Inc. and QVC Network Inc. to take over Paramount. Still, Martin S. Davis, Paramount's chairman, said the proposed network had already been approved by Viacom, Paramount's favored merger partner.