November 8, 1993

In the dizzying course of a five-minute conversation on the North American Free Trade Agreement, Jesus Hernandez begins with a great burst of national pride, focused on his shoes. "See this," the 28-year-old owner of a tiny shoemaking company says, lifting a shiny black exhibit from a friend's workshop table. "The gringos can't do leatherwork like this!"

Conservatives who hate raising taxes and liberals who cannot stand to cut spending have joined to bring the Senate to within a handful of votes of passing a constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget. Senator Paul Simon, the liberal Democrat from Illinois who is the measure's chief sponsor, is not yet predicting victory in the vote later this month, but he said in an interview that he had detected a gradual increase in support. He has been pushing the measure for several years, and won a promise from the Senate majority leader, George J. Mitchell of Maine, a firm opponent of the amendment, for a vote sometime in this Senate session, which may end by Thanksgiving.

When John L. Clendenin, the chairman of the BellSouth Corporation, was a high-level executive at A.T.& T., he installed a backyard swimming pool in the shape of a bell. After the breakup of the Bell System in 1984, he appeared at some meetings wearing a tie full of cracked bells. So one can only wonder what symbol he will come up with if BellSouth agrees to a substantial investment in the QVC Network Inc.'s hostile takeover bid for Paramount Communications. Paramount prefers a friendly takeover from Viacom Inc., the big cable company that on Saturday increased its offer to $10.1 billion, or $85 a share. [ Page C7. ]

ALBANY AND GIULIANI: ROUGH PATH AHEAD? For Rudolph W. Giuliani, the road linking promises made to promises fulfilled will lead time and again through a place of complex partisan alliances and fierce regional loyalties, where labels lose their meaning and reliable maps of the political terrain do not exist -- Albany. A1. NEW YORK CITY F.B.I. AGREED TO PUT TIMER BACK, TAPES SAY As a second bombing plot took shape months after the blast at the World Trade Center, nervous Federal agents agreed to slip a timer for a new bomb back into the garage where it was to be built, according to tape recordings made by an informer. B3.

To say that the Jets have a disdain for history would be incorrect. They have a healthy respect for history: their own. It was almost 25 years ago that Don Shula went for his first monumental victory against the Jets in Super Bowl III. The Jets slammed the door on him then with a 16-7 victory. This afternoon Shula entered Giants Stadium against the Jets with another important milestone within reach: his 325th victory to pass the Chicago Bears' George Halas as the winningest coach in National Football League history. Again, the Jets emphatically denied Shula. After jumping to a 20-3 third-quarter lead, they held on for a 27-10 victory before 71,306 fans.