March 3, 1995

Last Friday should have been a good day for Peter Baring, the chairman of Barings P.L.C., the British investment firm founded by his family 233 years ago. That morning, the company was to tell employees that they would be receiving hefty bonuses, a reward for bucking the industry trend and posting strong profits in 1994. But just after 7 A.M. Mr. Baring received a call telling him there was a big problem in the firm's Singapore office. Internal auditors had uncovered a huge financial bet that appeared to be going disastrously wrong. Moreover, the man responsible for it, a rising star named Nicholas W. Leeson, who would turn 28 the next day, had disappeared, not to be seen again until he was detained today in Frankfurt, where he arrived after taking a circuitous route from Asia.

The Federal Reserve stepped in to prop up the dollar on international currency markets today, in a partly successful effort to halt the dollar's monthlong slide against the Japanese yen and the German mark. The dollar touched a record low of 94.90 yen today, before the Fed began spending foreign currencies to buy dollars on currency markets in the afternoon.

In 14 years at Smith Barney, Michael R. Lissack earned millions of dollars. He advised local governments on bond issues worth tens of billions. And, he contends, he helped Wall Street line its pockets at the expense of taxpayers. Last month, according to Mr. Lissack, he told his bosses at Smith Barney that he would no longer remain silent in grand jury testimony about what he considered the firm's misdeeds. He was dismissed.

If asked what teen-agers did in this prosperous suburb to get on the wrong side of the law, until this week residents might have talked about those troublesome youths who defy the curfew at the town park, set at 30 minutes after sunset. That was before Wednesday, when law enforcement officials began their crackdown on a Nutley High School gambling ring that police said was run along the lines of an organized crime operation, complete with an "800" number to get the odds; shakedowns of parents to pay their children's debts, at least one kidnapping and thousands of dollars in weekly receipts for bets on football and basketball games and horse races.

"Who says only one shot is all you get?" asked Assembly Speaker Chuck Haytaian, who said yesterday that he is seriously considering a run for Senator Bill Bradley's seat next year. Mr. Haytaian said he had informed Republican leaders, including Gov. Christine Todd Whitman's office, that he will make his decision by Labor Day. Mr. Haytaian, who lost to Senator Frank Lautenberg by about 66,000 votes in November, said: "Tom Kean got two shots. Christie Whitman got two shots. I didn't embarrass myself last year. It's not like he blew me out of the water."