July 25, 1994

Senior White House officials put heavy pressure on the Deputy Treasury Secretary, a close friend of President Clinton, to stay involved in the sensitive Whitewater investigations, according to a politically candid diary kept by a senior Treasury official that has been turned over to Congress. Mr. Clinton was livid when Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger C. Altman decided to recuse himself from the Whitewater case in late February, according to the diary kept by Joshua L. Steiner, the chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen. At the time, Mr. Altman was also serving as acting head of the Resolution Trust Corporation, which made him the country's top savings and loan regulator.

The Economy American corporations are expanding operations overseas, creating jobs there and reviving an old debate here: why can't the goods and services that these foreign workers produce be supplied from the United States? A weak dollar and falling labor costs have made American products increasingly competitive, and yet overseas investment is rising at twice the rate of exports. [ Page A1. ]

Five years ago, amid handshakes and grins, the General Electric Company agreed to acquire Tungsram, a maker of lighting products and one of Hungary's industrial gems, in a deal that many believed would show other leading Western corporations how to turn Communist-run enterprises into money makers. Almost immediately, other ambitious American companies took notice of General Electric's investment in Eastern Europe, and it became a beacon of hope for Hungary's workers and Government leaders.

American companies are once again rapidly expanding their operations abroad -- demonstrating that no matter what the incentives for keeping business in the United States, the urge to spread factories, offices, stores and jobs overseas is irresistible. The surge in these investments and the jobs they create overseas comes just when exports should be climbing more rapidly than investment abroad. A weak dollar and falling labor costs have made American products increasingly competitive. Yet overseas investment is rising at twice the rate of exports. And for each dollar earned from exports, American companies take in nearly $2 from the sale of what they produce abroad.

Experimenting with plans for dealing with violence in New York City, Police Commissioner William J. Bratton decided this spring to turn one of the toughest parts of the city into a laboratory for criminal science. His area of concentration, the 75th Precinct in the East New York section of Brooklyn, teems with murders, shootings and robberies. It is a precinct where stickups take place in broad daylight and ricocheting bullets are a constant hazard, a place where hardly anyone takes an afternoon stroll without giving it serious thought.