June 26, 1995

Twenty-six years after he agonized over avoiding service in a war he "opposed and despised," President Clinton is moving toward the end of another agonizing deliberation over Vietnam: how and when to grant the former enemy full diplomatic recognition. Most of Mr. Clinton's senior diplomatic, military, economic and political advisers favor the move as the next step in a four-year-old process begun by the Bush Administration, aimed at providing the fullest possible accounting for Americans missing from the Vietnam War and at advancing United States business interests in Southeast Asia.

The leaders who took over the National Rifle Association four years ago point with pride to their success in increasing the group's membership and intensifying their lobbying against gun control laws. But at the same time these leaders have allowed the once financially strong organization to deteriorate into a deficit-plagued operation with bookkeeping practices so sloppy that even some of its most stalwart members have grown alarmed. "The disintegration of the assets of the N.R.A. under current spending policies have eroded our future viability," Max W. Goodwin, the chairman of the group's finance committee, wrote in a confidential letter last year to the organization's president. The letter and other documents were provided to The New York Times by members concerned about the group's finances.

The undercover man's perilous brush with disaster did not come while jumping out of a Cessna or water-skiing on the Riviera with a slinky blonde. It happened over Caesar salad with a few guys from Queens. For months, Joseph King, an agent for the United States Customs Service, had been Joe Kennedy: Irish arms dealer, solicitor, broker for Iraq. That April day, at the Hudson River Club in lower Manhattan, "Mr. Kennedy" was deep in negotiations over black-market zirconium, used in nuclear reactors and cluster bombs, when a friend of Joe King sauntered into the restaurant.

NEW YORK CITY A LITTLE ADVICE, MAYOR TO MAYOR It was probably inevitable, given their muscular temperaments. Maybe it is temporary. But whatever the prognosis, it sure has happened -- a rift between the Mayor of the moment, Rudolph W. Giuliani, and the man who wouldn't mind being Mayor forever, Edward I. Koch. "I have been very critical, in the same way I have been very supportive in the past," Mr. Koch said. "I think Rudy's become filled with his own sense of importance. I am trying to say to him: 'You're doing a terrific job substantively. But if you keep alienating people, you're going to end up with smoke.' " Metro Matters by Joyce Purnick. [ Page B3. ] OFFICER SHOT RESISTING MUGGERS An off-duty police officer was shot twice when he resisted two muggers who tried to rob him in the elevator of his Co-op City building late Saturday night, the police said. The officer, Angel Sostre, 37, of the Manhattan North Task Force, was shot in the neck and in the left shoulder after he identified himself to his attackers, the police said. [ B3. ] THE TEAM BEHIND THE REMAKE OF REX When paleontologists pronounced that Tyrannosaurus rex never stood upright, as he had for decades at the American Museum of Natural History, it was the museum's mounting team, not the scientists, that proposed the dramatic stalking pose that has turned rex into New York's newest media darling. It was also the mounting team that decided to hoist the Apatosaurus's tail high in the air (to critical applause). [ B3. ] ATTACK IN BROOKLYN LINKED TO FEUD Six teen-agers attacked a 19-year-old Brooklyn man in an alley in Sunset Park, using baseball bats, hockey sticks and the car-theft prevention device the Club to beat him close to death, the police said. The near-fatal assault on Asif Ali Hussain was part of a long-simmering feud between rival groups of Pakistani teen-agers, the police said, and the teen-agers who attacked Mr. Hussain may have been seeking revenge for an earlier fight involving him. [ B3. ] A STRATEGY FOR CROWD MANAGEMENT Perhaps mindful of his mixed reception at the Puerto Rican Day Parade, Mayor Giuliani unveiled his new strategy for dealing with booing spectators: cheering supporters. In the Gay and Lesbian Day Parade, Mr. Giuliani was accompanied by about 40 members of a gay Republican club and officials of his administration. Whenever he was greeted by boos from the crowd, the supporters quickly erupted in loud cheers and applause. [ B4. ] REGION TO CELEBRATE OR NOT TO . . . A day after the Devils tasted the champagne of victory, New Jersey's new Stanley Cup hockey champions were still trying to work themselves into a properly festive mood. The Devils and the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority were expected to make the arrangements for the team's victory celebration, an awkward pairing somewhat like appointing the Capulets and the Montagues to organize Romeo and Juliet's nuptials. [ B5. ] The 1994-95 National Hockey League season ended as the New Jersey Devils won the first -- and maybe only -- Stanley Cup championship in their history. [ Sports, C1. ] MOVING BEYOND THE BUDGET IN ALBANY The State Legislature returns to the Capitol this week for a final round of frenetic negotiations on bills that could start New York down the path to legalized casino gambling, force doctors to recommend H.I.V. testing to pregnant women and require convicted sex offenders to register with the state when they are released from prison. None of the state's leaders were willing to predict whether compromises will be reached on any of those bills, or on dozens of other significant pieces of legislation before the Senate and Assembly. [ B5. ] DOWN, PERHAPS, BUT NOT OUT IN YONKERS Terence M. Zaleski's tenure as Mayor of Yonkers, New York's fourth-largest city, has hardly been easy. Elected in 1991 with 36 percent of the vote, Mr. Zaleski, a Democrat, has presided over a deadlocked government in which he and the Republican-controlled City Council have accomplished little together. But as the mayoral race gears up, five months before the November election, few in this working-class city of 188,000 have counted Mr. Zaleski out. [ B5. ] Chronicle B2

The United States House of Representatives went on record this week in support of building a $70.8 million pier extension to serve two new ships at Naval Weapons Station Earle near Colts Neck. The measure still must be approved by the Senate and President Clinton, and Congress still must appropriate the money next year. But Representative Frank Pallone Jr., a Long Branch Democrat whose district includes the base, insisted that the endorsement makes the station more likely to survive possible future rounds of base closings.