August 13, 1994

Criticism of the appointment of Kenneth W. Starr as the Whitewater independent prosecutor intensified into a partisan furor today as Democratic senators demanded a public accounting of Mr. Starr's recent political activities and challenged the impartiality of the head of the three-judge panel that picked him. Some senators expressed shock at the news that Judge David B. Sentelle, the head of the three-judge appellate panel that named Mr. Starr, had lunch on July 14 with Senator Lauch Faircloth, a conservative Republican of North Carolina, while the panel was still considering its choice. Mr. Faircloth was a leader of efforts to oust Robert B. Fiske Jr. as the Whitewater prosecutor.

Thousands of Rwandans are heading for the exits of the French "safe haven" in southwestern Rwanda, bound for Zaire in what appears to be the start of a second mass exodus long feared by international relief agencies. These Rwandans are Hutu, and they are being pushed by a general fear of the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front, which now controls the rest of the country and is poised to enter southwestern Rwanda when French troops leave the area in 10 days.

The Republican Mayor offered to help the Democratic President bolster support for his imperiled crime bill, and the White House leaped at the chance. Page 10.

On the first day of the baseball players strike, with more than 700 major leaguers scattering to all parts of the country and beyond, negotiators for the players and owners did not rest yesterday. But they also did not, in a two-hour bargaining session, close the gulf that separates them and imperils the remainder of the season. Donald Fehr, the players' labor leader, and Richard Ravitch, the owners' chief labor executive, did agree on one matter: They accepted an offer of assistance from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.

President Clinton opened a furious counterattack today against the House members who sent the crime bill down to devastating defeat, accusing them of betraying Americans who have said that crime and violence represent their greatest fears. From the White House this morning, Mr. Clinton, speaking hoarsely, vowed to "fight and fight and fight until we win this battle for the American people." Then he boarded Air Force One to join police officers at a convention here in a hastily arranged trip intended to project his fervor before a backdrop of men in blue.