August 13, 1999

Nine Republican Presidential candidates scour state of Iowa in advance of straw poll at Iowa State University; poll has never in last 20 years accurately predicted Presidential victor, but because primary season has begun far earlier than usual, straw poll could supplant Iowa caucuses in weeding out 10-candidate field; contenders themselves have raised stakes, and expectations, by elevating importance of event; even campaigns that are struggling are portraying event as crucial test of campaign's organizational mettle; those hoping to make impressive showing include former Vice Pres Dan Quayle, Patrick Buchanan, former Gov Lamar Alexander, Sen Orrin Hatch, Alan Keyes, Steve Forbes, Elizabeth Dole, Gary Bauer and front-runner, Gov George W Bush; only Sen John McCain is bypassing event; photo (M)

Investigators said Buford O. Furrow Jr., the 37-year-old man held in a shooting on Tuesday at a Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles, had told them that he shot a Filipino-American letter carrier afterwards because he was a nonwhite ''target of opportunity.'' Article, page A18.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, advocating Democratic line as she prepares for probable run for Senate, denounces Congressional Republicans' $792 billion tax cut bill as threat to Medicare, Social Security and nation's financial health; Mayor Rudolph W Giuliani, who is also considering race for Senate, is finding himself squeezed on one side by Mrs Clinton and on other by conservative Republicans who are pressing him to take position on bill; Giuliani says he backs large tax cuts, but not as large as those that have been legislated by Republicans (M)

Bard Music Festival, under direction of Leon Botstein, focuses each year on a single composer, this year Arnold Schoenberg; festival is held at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; works by the composer will also be featured at several New York City venues in coming months; listing; drawing (M)

Some of nation's leading investment and securities firms have held talks in recent months with number of day-trading firms despite growing regulatory concern about world of day trading; Fidelity Investments, Lehman Brothers and Instinet, division of Reuters Group, have discussed adopting software platforms of day-trading firms, forming alliances with them or making outright acquisitions; electronic trading boom is forcing big firms to look for cheaper and more efficient trading formats; day-trading firms have critical experience developing and using advanced trading and trade-routing software, systems that could someday give all investors instant access to financial markets; Wall Street firms have little or no interest in computer-jammed offices where day traders converge to make rapid-fire trades; they want software and in some cases transaction volume generated by these smaller firms; Broadway Trading, Tradescape.com and Cybercorp, all privately held companies, have each been approached in recent months by companies interested in buying stake or acquiring firms; three firms decline to comment (Market Place column) (M)

Resales of used cars that are rebuilt and cleaned up to conceal damage are widespread problem; from 20 to 40 percent of the 2.3 million vehicles that are declared 'totaled' by insurers each year are rebuilt and resold, some legally, some not; unscrupulous rebuilders are able to reregister vehicles with clean titles and new identification numbers under inconsistent state laws, and several attempts to create national car-title standard have failed in Congress; online title searches available at Web sites VHR, owned by CCC Information Service, and Carfax, owned by Polk Co, noted; chart shows how a damaged vehicle's title is 'washed'; photo (M)

John C Bogle, founder of Vanguard Group mutual fund company, confirms that he will most likely have to leave Vanguard board at end of this year, in keeping with longstanding policy that requires directors to resign at end of calendar year in which they turn 70; since he stepped down as Vanguard's chief executive in 1996 and as chairman last year, Bogle has held title of senior chairman and has remained on nine-member board; photo (M)

Clinton Administration says Pentagon will issue broad new guidelines to end abuses of 'don't ask, don't tell' policy on people in uniform suspected of being gay, including limits on investigations; new guidelines require that troops receive anti-gay-harassment training throughout their careers, and that any inquiry into sexual orientation of soldier be handled at senior level of military justice system; low-level, poorly trained investigators have been blamed for turning some investigations into virtual witch hunts for homosexuals in uniform; Administration officials say Pentagon feels need to announce new guidelines quickly, given uproar over death last month of gay soldier at Fort Campbell, Ky, who was beaten with baseball bat, reportedly by another soldier in his unit; it is not clear if new guidelines will satisfy gay rights and other civil rights groups (M)

BP Amoco PLC is embroiled in bankruptcy proceeding and takeover fight that threatens to destroy Russian oil company Sidanko and BP Amoco's investment in it; eighteen months ago BP paid $484 million for 10 percent of Sidanko shares and planned to invest $3 billion more over next decade, mainly to develop huge Siberian gas field; Vladimir Potanin, president of Uneximbank, Sidanko's owner, had political influence to shepherd project through Russia's hostile business environment; BP Amoco has been outmaneuvered by aggressive, well-connected Russian rival, the Tyumen Oil Co; BP Amoco accuses Tyumen of tampering with Russian courts to wrest Sidanko's main production unit away through bankruptcy process; Tyumen denies this; BP Amoco has already written off $200 million of its investment; it will have to write off rest of its investment if Tyumen succeeds in taking over Sidanko; BP Amoco's involvement with Sidanko unravels as tale of carelessness and naivete, one in which it tried to follow rules of Western business only to discover too late that those rules do not apply in Russia; drawing; graphs; photo (M)

German daily Die Welt publishes memoirs of Adolf Eichmann in which Eichmann sought to explain his central role in killing of six million European Jews by Nazis; Die Welt says it found Eichmann's handwritten reflections at Center for Research on Nazi Crimes in German town of Ludwigsburg; in them, Eichmann claims he was driven by visceral sense of duty rather than hatred to organize mass murder of Jews; says his life was predicated on being obedient, and suggests being obedient is in nature of the German; his remarks will prove sensitive in Germany, where question of responsibility for Holocaust remains contentious; Eichmann was captured by Israeli agents in 1960 and executed in Israel two years later; photo (M)

School districts across nation are taking new security measures in wake of armed assaults by students, even as new statistics show that school violence is actually on decline; inclination to instill sense of greater security among students and their parents can only be strengthened by latest shooting, at Jewish community center in Los Angeles; many districts are forging close new relationship with local police departments, removing lockers, installing security cameras and issuing computerized ID cards for students to enter school; other districts, by contrast, reject idea of detection systems as an affront to educational openness; they are opting for programs to make students feel more responsible for their school's safety and less reluctant to report violations; administrators know that statistics showing decline in violence are of little comfort to parents who have learned that violence can erupt anywhere, at any moment (M)

New York Mets beat San Diego Padres, 9-3; photo (M)