February 16, 1994

Viacom Inc. emerged yesterday as the winning bidder for Paramount Communications Inc., surviving a five-month battle fought on Wall Street, in board rooms and in courtrooms. In a complex offer worth about $9.7 billion in cash and securities, Viacom edged out its rival, QVC Network Inc., whose own offer was similar enough that it was not until late Monday evening that a majority of Paramount's shareholders had agreed to cast their lot with Viacom.

One day after Dan Jansen slipped to his own tortured level of Olympic ineptitude, Diann Roffe-Steinrotter descended brilliantly from the mountain toward a golden state of blissful retirement. Is it better to have thoroughly dominated one's sport but won nothing on the most visible stage of all, or to have basically been a career also-ran who somehow seizes the great Olympic moments? The bowed heads of Jansen, the American speed skater, and Roffe-Steinrotter, the Alpine skier, less than 24 hours apart said it all -- Jansen's in mourning over squandering another Olympic chance, Roffe-Steinrotter's for a gold medal to be slipped around her neck. 'Inspiration for the Peaks' "The valleys have been an inspiration for the peaks," the 26-year-old Roffe-Steinrotter said today, jubilant after becoming the shocking winner in the women's super-giant slalom. Her victory made it 2-0 here at the Olympic Winter Games for the previously beleaguered United States Alpine team over the rest of planet Earth.

Universal insurance coverage has become the touchstone of the debate over health care. President Clinton threatens to veto legislation "that does not guarantee every American private health insurance that can never be taken away." But what precisely does universal coverage mean? How would it be administered? Would everyone voluntarily enroll in a health plan? Would the Government force people to buy insurance?

The board of Maclean Hunter Ltd. made clear today that it would actively resist a takeover bid by Rogers Communications Inc., advising shareholders that Rogers's buyout offer was not good enough. Rogers is offering $2.9 billion (Canadian), or $2.25 billion in United States currency.

The liberation of West 99th Street began yesterday at 12:37 P.M. Some people embraced in the streets. Children stared out from school windows. The uniformed liberators, their fat orange rubber gloves raised in the air, returned the salutes. The garbage was being picked up.

Surprise Plea in Florida With relatives of his victims gathered in the courtroom, the man accused of murdering five college students in Gainesville in 1990 stunned a courtroom by pleading guilty. Page A10. Solarz Job: On Again The long-delayed nomination of Stephen J. Solarz as Ambassador to India will move ahead, Administration officials said. Page A8. Merit Scholar Bias Charged A Federal civil rights complaint charges that the method of awarding prestigious National Merit Scholarships discriminates against girls and should be changed. Page A18. 'Catch-22,' Part 2 Thirty-three years after his bitterly satirical war novel, whose title entered the American lexicon, Joseph Heller has written a sequel. Page C13. Canis Major A Norwich terrier, the aptly named Ch. Chidley Willum the Conqueror, was judged best in show last night at the 118th Westminster Kennel Club dog show. Page B13.

One day after stepping down as second in command at the Justice Department, Philip B. Heymann today attacked several cornerstone provisions of a multibillion-dollar crime bill that has emerged as the Clinton Administration's main legislative vehicle to crack down on crime and violence. Mr. Heymann, who headed the Justice Department's effort to produce an Administration approach to crime legislation, said popular proposals like the "three strikes and you're out" measure, which would lock up repeat offenders for life without parole, were largely empty solutions that would have a negligible effect. on crime.

Viacom's Victory Viacom edged out QVC Network in the five-month battle for Paramount Communications, with a winning $9.7 billion bid. The victory makes Sumner Redstone, the chairman of Viacom, even more powerful in the entertainment business. [ Page A1. ]

Inflation, Wall Street would have us believe, is not good for brokers, bond traders and other living things. Why, then, did blue-chip shares take their biggest one-day drop in two years on news that the Federal Reserve was nudging up interest rates as a pre-emptive strike against the dread condition? And why, two weeks later, despite repeated assurances from the economics establishment that inflation is nowhere in sight, do professional investors wait with bated breath for the dribs and drabs of price data released periodically by Washington? One answer is that after three years of benign neglect of prices and another year of words without deeds, even the delicate squeeze on credit signaled by the Fed was bound to shock. "The move was a surprise in its timing" if not its direction, concluded Lesley Daniels Webster, a securities trader and economist at the Union Bank of Switzerland.

SOLARZ NOMINATION BACK ON TRACK Ater months of delay, the Clinton administration said that it was moving ahead with the nomination of former Representative Stephen J. Solarz of Brooklyn to be the Ambassador to India. A8. NEW YORK CITY

Demonstrating the electric-car equivalent of a gas station, with a device that recharges batteries in minutes instead of hours, a small Georgia company has shattered the world record for miles traveled by an electric vehicle in 24 hours. At an average of 35 miles an hour at the Atlanta Motor Speedway last Friday, it was certainly not the fastest speed ever achieved there. But the feat, beginning a little after noon, was noteworthy all the same: an electric Chevy S-10 pickup truck, toting in its bed enough batteries to run a whole house for a day and traveling 44 to 45 laps of the 1.477-mile oval between charges, covered 831.8 miles. That beat by 200 miles the previous 24-hour record, set in Los Angeles on July 12, 1992, with a Geo Storm using the drivetrain and batteries of an Impact.

For nine years, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo has urged the Legislature to let the state claim $70 million in nickel deposits left with beverage distributors each year by people who throw away returnable bottles and cans. He appointed a study commission, issued glossy pamphlets and held hearings at which thousands of nickels were dropped vividly on the floor. He failed. This year, Mr. Cuomo has tried a new approach. Tucked among 2,000 pages of budget legislation is a bill calling for $50 million in environmental programs, mostly in the districts of influential Republican senators who have traditionally sided with the bottling industry. The bill comes with a promise, and a threat: If, and only if, the legislation passes, will the Governor guarantee money for the coveted projects this year and every year.