April 20, 1996

When scientists from the Kurchatov Institute go to work at Building 116, getting in the door is no simple matter. First, they slide computerized identification cards into a cage-like booth at the entranceway. Then they punch in a secret code, while a computer determines their weight to verify their identity.

Senator Bob Dole said today that President Clinton's judicial appointments had caused a "crisis" in the courts and in a move eagerly sought by conservatives, he promised to expel the American Bar Association from the judicial screening process. Mr. Dole, the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee, has voted for 182 of Mr. Clinton's 185 appointees to the Federal bench and for both of his nominees to the Supreme Court, although he said today that he gave that support "out of deference to a President's constitutional prerogative." Nonetheless, Mr. Dole warned that Mr. Clinton's re-election would undermine the judiciary with "an all-star team of liberal leniency."

Despite a flurry of diplomatic efforts to end the fighting, and despite the global outcry over the fiery killing of at least 75 Lebanese civilians by Israeli guns on Thursday, exchanges of shells and rockets in southern Lebanon continued unabated for the ninth day today. The mass deaths generated a swirl of diplomatic moves to secure a cease-fire, involving, at last count, the United States, France, Russia, the European Union and the Group of Seven industrial nations.

Aware of the delicacy of being in Russia not long before its presidential election, President Clinton averted his eyes from politics. Page 4.

One moment it was, look at the desk where John F. Kennedy signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The next moment it was, there may be a bomb right here, head for the exits. It began as a magical day at Sotheby's auction house yesterday with the arrival of the much-ballyhooed, long-anticipated opening day for public viewing of the possessions of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.