March 9, 1999

Mary Fish Basquez, 56-year-old Muscogee Indian, receives only few dollars a year from six oil wells on her family's land in Oklahoma under trust system run by Federal Government; her case is one of thousands behind largest class-action suit ever filed by Indians; they say Government, which is required by law to take care of Indian trust lands with high standard of fiduciary responsibility, has managed them with epic ineptitude; trust officials say effort to restore original documents, and then pay out lost money that Indians say may be as high as $10 billion, will be one of hardest things Government has tried to do; Federal Judge Royce C Lamberth in Feb held Interior Sec Bruce Babbitt and Treasury Sec Robert E Rubin in civil contempt for their inability to produce documents in case; photos (M)

Decade after many American companies began adopting just-in-time delivery and other lean manufacturing techniques, aerospace industry is embracing concept to cut costs in face of reduced military spending and, in commercial aircraft, stiff competition from Europe's Airbus Industrie; executives are now bandying about Japanese terms like 'kaizen' (continuous improvement) and 'kanban' (just-in-time system); they are applying them well enough to achieve some startling efficiency gains in industry long known as much for high costs and wasteful procedures as for cutting-edge technology; lean manufacturing techniques adopted by B F Goodrich Co's aerospace division factory, Boeing Co factory in Long Beach, Calif, and Northrup Grumman plant in Palmdale, Ca, detailed; diagrams; photos (M)

Energy Sec Bill Richardson says Wen Ho Lee, Taiwan-born scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, was fired for security breaches after FBI questioned him in connection with China's suspected theft of US nuclear secrets; accuses Lee of 'stonewalling' investigation; Lee has not been charged with crime, but he has been identified by Federal officials as prime suspect in spying; China denies any such theft; Sen Fred Thompson criticizes Clinton Administration for failing to notify Congress in 1997 that China had stolen nuclear secrets when Administration certified that Beijing was no longer helping other nations build nuclear bombs (M)

Schools Chancellor Rudy Crew withdraws his threat to resign after Mayor Rudolph W Giuliani says he will make no immediate effort to use city money to send public-school students to private and religious schools; had threatened to resign because Giuliani had started to lobby members of Board of Education to approve $12 million plan for school vouchers; their agreement to try to resolve issue diffuses six-day standoff that threatened to destabilize New York City's often-beleaguered school system; it also averts political embarrassment for Giuliani of losing leader of school system that Mayor has taken pains in last two years to prove he supports; photo (M)

Joe DiMaggio, Hall of Fame center fielder for New York Yankees whose 56-game hitting streak in 1941 made him indelible American folk hero, dies at age 84; photos (M)