January 14, 1994

LORENA BOBBITT aside, there are some very scary women out there. And the scariest of all, whether in the news or in the forefront of popular culture, are suddenly high-powered career types with a yen to humiliate men. The motivating force in "Mrs. Doubtfire," the season's most popular film, is a woman who kicks her husband out for no good reason, and whose crisp professionalism is presented as her worst character flaw. Meanwhile, back at the bookstore, Michael Crichton's latest movie-on-paper is "Disclosure" (Alfred A. Knopf), about a female executive who connives her way to the top and then tries to force an ex-boyfriend to have sex with her. "Remember the night we broke the bed?" Mr. Crichton's Meredith Johnson asks playfully, at the start of a closed-door session that is supposed to be a business meeting. But Tom Sanders is suspicious, as well he should be: Meredith forces a drink on him, then arranges for her assistant (also a woman) to deliver a package of condoms and lock the door to Meredith's office. If Senator Bob Packwood were accused of this particular behavior it might sound embarrassingly clumsy, but Mr. Crichton presents Meredith as a serious threat to Tom's well-being. "She moved toward him in a steady, confident way, almost stalking," he writes in another scene.

NEW YORK CITY ATTEMPT TO HEAL TENSIONS FAILS An effort by the Giuliani administration to calm tensions between the Police Department and black New Yorkers crumbled in recriminations after the new Police Commissioner shunned a meeting with representatives of the Nation of Islam and other blacks. A1.

For most Russian politicians, the Clinton visit was a pleasant but not particularly relevant event during a week in which the new Russian Parliament was setting the stage for new battles with a new set of players elected just a month ago. "It would have been better if he had put it off for two months," said the former Mayor of Moscow, Gavriil Popov, "until things here had had a chance to sort themselves out." Vadim V. Bakatin, who served as head of the K.G.B. during Mikhail S. Gorbachev's last months in power, said that he was still waiting for the American President to present new ideas to help lead the world in the post-cold war era.

After five months of testimony, 19 days of deliberations and several prods from the judge, a jury said today that it could not reach a verdict in the murder trial of Erik Menendez, and the judge declared a mistrial. A separate jury continued to deliberate on the same charges against Erik's older brother, Lyle Menendez. Both brothers are accused of murder in the killing of their parents in 1989.

When President Clinton stepped up to the lectern at a fund-raising reception for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan at the Waldorf-Astoria last month, he joked: "Before I met Pat Moynihan, I actually thought I knew something about Government. Now I just feel like I'm getting a grade every time I talk in front of him." Unfortunately for Mr. Clinton, his latest grades from the professor-turned-Senator have been well below average -- so lackluster that the New York Democrat has made a public example of his student several times in recent days, to the irritation and embarrassment of the White House.