March 2, 1995

The impasse in the Senate over the balanced-budget amendment can be explained by this finding in the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll: 79 percent of Americans said they favored a constitutional amendment that would require the Federal Government to balance its books by 2002; but only 32 percent said they were in favor if it would require cuts in Social Security. With an eye toward those numbers, the proponents of the amendment portray themselves as the champions of fiscal responsibility and their opponents as spendthrifts. Those against the amendment accuse the proponents of planning to raid Social Security and picture themselves as the guardians of retirement benefits.

Republicans shut down the Senate chamber again today to avert a certain defeat of the proposed balanced-budget amendment, and both parties took the fight over the measure -- now more a political guerrilla war than a debate -- to the Capitol's corridors and television studios. By the end of the day, both sides agreed that the final vote on the amendment, which the majority leader, Bob Dole, had promised but abruptly postponed on Tuesday, would occur on Thursday. Mr. Dole insisted, in passing, that supporters still yearn for a lone Democrat to provide the 67th vote they need to push the amendment past Senate foes.

The New York City police officer who opened fire on a black plainclothes transit officer during a moment of rush-hour chaos on a subway platform last summer has been indicted by a grand jury for first-degree assault, a person close to the indicted officer's family said yesterday. Officer Peter Del-Debbio, 31, was off duty and traveling home on the evening of Aug. 22 when he said he mistook an undercover officer, Desmond Robinson, 31, for a criminal and emptied his five-shot revolver at him. He could face a maximum sentence of 5 to 15 years if convicted of first-degree assault. The grand jury also indicted Officer Del-Debbio for second-degree assault.

Police officers acting with the blessing of President Nelson Mandela today raided the home of his estranged wife, Winnie Mandela, searching for evidence to support charges she defrauded a Government program that builds houses for the poor. A police spokesman said a monthlong investigation had already uncovered documents showing Mrs. Mandela used her influence as a junior Cabinet member to steer Government contracts to a construction company, which repaid her with cash bribes and a controlling interest in the company.

The rest of America may be feeding on modern gossip as an industrial-size staple of the gross national product, but not Christoph Arnold and his fellow Christian pacifists, who live quietly as the Hutterian Brethren here on the banks of the Wallkill River. "It would tear us to pieces," Mr. Arnold said.