March 25, 1994

HAS there been an exhibition that generated more noise before it opened than the Richard Avedon show that is now at the Whitney Museum of American Art? Not this season, anyway. First came the collective groan after David A. Ross, newly installed as the museum's director, proposed it as one of the largest retrospectives ever contemplated at the Whitney. Those who knew that Mr. Ross had enjoyed successes with two previous Avedon exhibitions at museums he headed, in Berkeley, Calif., and Boston, weren't surprised. But more than a few people were taken aback that his first move at an institution dogged by charges of trendiness was a gigantic display of the work of a master of fashion photography and celebrity portraiture. Since then, despite being scaled back, the show has caused an alarming buzz around the museum, like an approaching V-1.

The House surprised even itself today and voted lopsidedly, 315 to 110, to make virtually all lobbyists report how much they spend to influence Congress, and to ban altogether the meals and gifts they have long rained on lawmakers. It was the most muscular attempt to curtail the influence of money on the lawmaking process since at least 1989, when Congress enacted broad ethics reforms, and the first overhaul of the rules governing lobbyists since 1946. Despite some complaints that the measure did not go far enough, some Democrats who have crusaded in the last year to repair Congress's sorry public image proclaimed it a huge step forward.

AS pep bands go, it was an odd one, no question. But then, this was a peculiar game of touch football, played most Saturday afternoons through the 1970's on a forlorn, balding scrap of ground in upper Riverside Park in Manhattan and dominated by musicians. After a nasty collision or a nastier dropped pass in the end zone, some Juilliard-trained ear might cock to identify a soothing Bach chorale, wafting on the howling wind from the tower of Riverside Church, up the hill at Riverside Drive and 122d Street. Undoubtedly, the sounds of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Carillon struck other hearers differently, providing solace, inspiration or quite possibly unwanted distraction. And "struck" is used advisedly, for the carillon is one of the few musical experiences -- or was, before the advent of megawatt rock amplification and boom boxes -- that is inflicted, unbidden, on whole neighborhoods.

Markets Stocks fell on a run of bad news and assorted anxiety, ranging from the assassination of Mexico's leading presidential candidate to concern the Whitewater affair may damage the Clinton Administration, to a drop in European markets. The Dow fell 48.37 points, to 3,821.09. [ Page D1. ] The killing of the Mexican candidate, Luis Donaldo Colosio, jolted investors around the world. [ D5. ]

President Clinton tried once again tonight to stop the past from consuming his Presidency, as he defended himself against new Republican allegations in the Whitewater affair. He urged Americans to let him move beyond the spiral of financial and ethical questions so that he could take advantage of a "rare moment" to pursue "real work." Mr. Clinton held the second prime-time news conference of his Presidency to try to recapture his present and future, listing a litany of accomplishments and saying of Whitewater: "None of this, in the light of history, will be as remotely important as the fact that by common consensus we had the most productive first year of a Presidency last year of anyone in a generation. That's what matters -- that we're changing people's lives." [ Transcript, page A18. ] Accusations on House Floor The President calmly delivered his defense only a few hours after Representative Jim Leach, Republican of Iowa, went to the House floor to offer documentation of ethical and financial misdeeds in connection with Whitewater and to accuse the Administration of an attempted cover-up that "flagrantly violated" the independence of regulatory agencies. [ page A17 ] .