October 5, 1994

When Lowell P. Weicker Jr. became the first third-party Governor in Connecticut since the Civil War, it was heralded across the country as a leap forward for those seeking an alternative to the Democrats and Republicans. "We're not used to the idea of a third party," he said at the time. "But why shouldn't the monopoly of politics be changed?"

The Mead Corporation has reached an agreement to sell its Mead Data Central electronic information division to the British-Dutch publishing giant Reed Elsevier P.L.C., the two companies said last night. The proposed sale, for $1.5 billion, gives Reed Elsevier its first major stake in the emerging world of electronic information services, and allows Mead to return its focus to its core forest-products business. Other bidders for Mead Data Central reportedly included the Thomson Corporation and Times Mirror.

The Economy Auto sales surged 7.4 percent in September, as the Big Three auto makers took sales from foreign producers, riding the popularity of sport utility vehicles and light trucks. [ Page D1. ]

The man who was a major force in the success of the Reagan White House came to Virginia tonight to pay court to the man whose actions could have toppled it. James A. Baker 3d, White House chief of staff and Treasury Secretary in the Reagan Administration, and President George Bush's Secretary of State, joined the pilgrimage of Republican Presidential prospects campaigning with Oliver L. North in his remarkable bid to join the Senate he once defied.

American Auto Sales Surge Detroit's Big Three auto makers captured sales from foreign producers, sending car and truck sales up 7.4 percent in September. Page D1. Major Earthquake Hits Japan One of the most powerful earthquakes in its history hit Japan, but it caused surprisingly few casualties and little damage. Page A3. Big Hospital Chains to Merge Columbia-HCA Healthcare, the nation's largest hospital company, will acquire Healthtrust, the second-biggest, in a $5 billion deal. Page D1.

The Giffnock Corporation, a small company just off Interstate 95 in Rye, N.Y., that rents office suites to itinerant business executives, is the kind of place that would give an organization man fits: it's a thoroughly modern office. Most of the people working there are barely connected with one another. They work for large and small companies elsewhere or for themselves -- merely leasing their offices for a monthly fee. There's a foreign-currency trader for a big Wall Street brokerage house telecommuting in one office, just down the hall from a former I.B.M. executive trying to make it on his own. Freelance headhunters stalk the halls.

Sales of cars and light trucks rose 7.4 percent in September, as the Big Three auto makers gained market share from foreign producers by virtue of the surging popularity of pickup trucks, mini-vans and four-wheel-drive vehicles. The strong gain in sales, reported today by the auto makers, came despite concerns that higher interest rates could choke off consumer confidence and the ability of consumers to make monthly payments. The report briefly unnerved the bond market, which saw it as a sign that higher rates were failing to moderate growth, and Treasury prices fell. [ Page D15. ] Stock prices were also lower yesterday. [ Page D8. ]

Five weeks before Election Day, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo and his Republican rival, State Senator George E. Pataki, are locked in a tight race because many New Yorkers are so disenchanted with the three-term incumbent that they are willing to support a challenger who remains largely unknown, according to a New York Times/WCBS-TV News Poll. The statewide telephone poll, taken between Sept. 29 and Oct. 2, shows a virtual dead heat, with Mr. Pataki holding a slim lead of 44 percent to 41 percent among registered voters. Twelve percent are undecided. The distance between Mr. Pataki and Mr. Cuomo is within the poll's margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points, meaning that either candidate could actually be ahead.

Hooded, handcuffed and listening to friends' cries under torture, a leftist sociology professor facing interrogation one night 25 years ago thought his life might end at the hands of army intelligence agents. Indeed from 1964 to 1985, the years of Brazil's military dictatorship, he suffered exile, imprisonment, blacklisting and the bombing of his social research group. But today, voting returns and exit polls indicated that Brazilians had elected the professor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, to be President by the widest popular margin since a retired army general was chosen to lead the nation in 1945.

One would never guess that Ludovico L. de Carlo, who is 65 years old, is a tormented man as he stands on the terrace at sunset, nibbling hors d'oeuvres, laughing with a group of international business tycoons, being serenaded by two violinists and caressed by warm ocean breezes. But his wife, Sara, reveals his dark secret. "He's so angry," Mrs. de Carlo confides to a visitor. "He has complete control over everything else in his office, except for that little box. He's determined to master it, but he's frustrated that he can't do it in one day."

The military power structure that has tyrannized Haiti for three years seemed to be crumbling today, as the feared chief of police suddenly fled the country and the leader of the main paramilitary group publicly endorsed the return of Haiti's ousted President, the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Col. Michel Francois, the police chief of the Port-au-Prince district, was reported to have crossed into the Dominican Republic just before midday after a tense 14-hour standoff at the border in which Dominican officials initially denied him entry. Several officers on his staff were said to have accompanied him into exile.

Pledging that "in 11 days I will be in Haiti," its exiled President, the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, told the United Nations General Assembly today that he is committed to a policy of reconciliation and reconstruction under which civil violence will not be tolerated and retribution will be left to the judicial process. "We will prepare our reconciliation coffee with the filter of justice, so that no traces of violence or vengeance will be found," he said, quoting a Creole saying. He devoted much of his address to outlining a recovery plan, suggesting also that Haiti's Army, which he called a drain on the economy, would be reduced in size.