May 6, 1996

Lending disturbing credence to the darkest suspicions of many Russians, President Boris N. Yeltsin's closest confidant called today for a postponement of the presidential election scheduled for June 16. "People must be given time to calmly think about everything and reach a mature conclusion," said Maj. Gen. Aleksandr V. Korzhakov, Mr. Yeltsin's security chief, in a rare interview with the Interfax news agency. "For this, more time is needed than we have until June 16. There are entire regions of Russia where the civilized expression of people's will is not yet possible."

Friends and survivors of the men and women who served in the Vietnam War will gather tomorrow for the annual New Jersey Vietnam Veterans Remembrance Day. Gen. Alfred M. Gray, who served as commandant of the Marine Corps from 1987 until his retirement in 1991 -- the only New Jerseyan ever to serve as commandant -- will address the gathering. In all, 78,000 New Jerseyans served in the conflict, and 1,547 lost their lives.

Palestinian Peace Talks Open Tough Last Phase

The director of the borough and township of Princeton's Joint Commission on Civil Rights contends that his own civil rights have been violated. Ovie E. Lattimore was reduced to part-time status without benefits on March 11. He sued the borough and township last month, maintaining that the action against him was racially motivated, said his lawyer, Edward J. Boccher. In the suit, Mr. Lattimore, who is black, accuses officials of retaliating against him for helping parents of minority high school students who filed discrimination complaints in February.

As debate has flared up among the Republican Party's Christian right politicians over how to oppose abortion, no one is more engrossed than Senator Olympia J. Snowe, who could not agree less with the anti-abortion partisans who have long dictated each jot and tittle of her party's position. To the ordinary citizen, the dispute stirred by Ralph Reed, executive director of the Christian Coalition, over the fine print of the party's anti-abortion position may sound like the political equivalent of a medieval puzzle of theology: how many spin doctors can fit on the head of a pin.