April 20, 1994

DOWNSTAIRS, the mothers of adult children with AIDS talked of doctors, drug trials and T-cell counts. Upstairs, the mothers whose children had died of the disease talked of cremations, burials and patches on a memorial quilt. When they were not talking, they were weeping, upstairs and downstairs, on those Tuesday nights in the small brick building in Greenwich Village. The saddest nights were the ones just after a death. Leaving the downstairs group, the grieving mother would climb a steep, narrow flight of stairs with a dim light at the top, to join the others.

In a last-minute turnabout that immeasurably sweetened South African hopes for a peaceful birth of democracy, Zulu nationalist leaders agreed today to call off what had threatened to be a calamitous election boycott. With only seven days remaining until the elections ending white rule, Chief Mangosuthu G. Buthelezi, grinning broadly alongside Nelson Mandela and President F. W. de Klerk at a news conference, announced that his Inkatha Freedom Party would be included on the ballots for a new National Assembly and for provincial legislatures.

The three big broadcast television networks have concluded their strongest season since cable television began to cut significantly into the broadcast audience in the early 1980's, network executives said yesterday. The overall share of the audience controlled by CBS, ABC and NBC grew slightly, with no growth in the share of audience that was watching cable channels over the same period -- Sept. 20 through Sunday night.

Leaders of Japan's ruling coalition settled today on Foreign Minister Tsutomu Hata as the next Prime Minister but remained divided over policies to end the recession and reopen trade talks with the United States. Mr. Hata's selection was assured when his remaining rival, a former Foreign Minister, Michio Watanabe, withdrew.

Police Commissioner William J. Bratton said yesterday that New York City patrol officers are often inadequately supervised because their sergeants, the first line of defense against police corruption, are overwhelmed by paperwork and scattered too thinly. Mr. Bratton said in an interview that his view was based on his own observations and on a study prepared for him by a management consultant. The Commissioner assigned the consultant to review the management structure of the department and the attitudes of police officers and brass. Prepared as the current scandal surrounding corruption in a Harlem police precinct was about to unfold, the study concluded that the department's effectiveness was badly hampered by the attitudes of its members and that the internal investigative apparatus was stretched beyond its ability.