Replaying Thursday, May 28, 1981

NEWS MEDIA FIND IT HARD TO COVER JERSEY PRIMARY

Date: 28 May 1981

By Jonathan Friendly

Jonathan Friendly

New Jersey's June 2 gubernatorial primary is frustrating reporters and confounding editors who say they do not quite know how to cover a race among 21 candidates with their flood of forums, position papers, rallies, news conferences and strategic maneuvers. It has become a staple of modern mass-media politics for candidates to complain that the news people are ignoring the issues, but in this race some of the editors and reporters agree with the charge. To round up what 21 candidates think about crime control or the economy would take two columns in a newspaper, said Richard E. Benfield, news editor of The Record, in Bergen County. ''I don't think anybody's going to read that sort of a piece,'' he added. Having written a couple such articles, Patrick Breslin, an Associated Press correspondent in Trenton, has given up, he said, because nobody printed them.

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News Analysis

Date: 29 May 1981

By Hedrick Smith, Special To the New York Times

Hedrick Smith

In earlier Presidencies, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Dwight D. Eisenhower turned their own infectious personal optimism into an important political asset, and now Ronald Reagan follows in that tradition. With his genial manner, his jaunty smile and his robust recovery from the shooting nearly two months ago, Mr. Reagan has managed to tap and nurture a budding mood of national self-confidence even before his major policies have had enough time to achieve real practical impact or to be properly tested. At West Point yesterday his topic was national defense. Along with encouragement for the home front, the President offered implied warnings for adversaries abroad that ''a new spirit'' had risen in the land that could bring new American assertiveness abroad in meeting ''our responsibilities to the free world.''

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COMPANY NEWS

Date: 29 May 1981

Higher Bid Studied, By Ua-Columbia

Higher Studied

In a move that might spell an end to the efforts of two major publishers to acquire UA-Columbia Cablevision Inc., the cable company announced yesterday that it had begun negotiations on a higher bid from United Artists Theatre Circuit Inc. and Rogers Telecommunications Ltd. Dow Jones & Company and Knight-Ridder Newspapers Inc., which have an $80-a-share bid outstanding for the fast-growing company, said yesterday that they had no plans to sweeten their proposal.

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News Analysis

Date: 28 May 1981

By R.w. Apple Jr., Special To the New York Times

Even on the morning after, it was difficult to be certain, but yesterday's Dutch general election appeared to have made it highly unlikely that cruise missiles would ever be deployed on the soil of the Netherlands. That was the conclusion of both Dutch political analysts and Western diplomats as they studied the contradictory voting patterns that deprived Prime Minister Andries van Agt's center-right coalition of its majority in Parliament and at the same time made his Christian Democrats Parliament's biggest single party. Amid all the political complexity, with no one having any idea who will head the next government, it seemed clear that any administration would find it impossible to assemble the 76 or more votes necessary to win approval for emplacing new medium-range nuclear missiles in this country. Major Blow to the Alliance A Dutch ban on the missiles would be viewed by Western strategic planners as a major blow to the Atlantic alliance. It would leave, on purely military grounds, a large hole in the nuclear shield that the West had hoped to build against the Soviet Union's medium-range SS-20's. And, perhaps more important, it could undermine the hard-won unanimity of the North Atlantic Treat Organization on measures to counter a Soviet threat to Western Europe.

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News Analysis

Date: 28 May 1981

By Steven Rattner

Steven Rattner

The semiannual meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries adjourned last night, but the final communique may not have been the last word. Among the questions it left unanswered were: Will Saudi Arabia, now charging $32 a barrel for its principal grade of oil, raise prices to the other countries' $36 level and reduce production? Will the production quotas adopted here by other members push prices up in a market that appears to be pushing them relentlessly down? For some, the meeting also left questions about OPEC's cohesiveness. Amid such uncertainties, quick judgments are highly speculative. But the prevailing view in the halls of the InterContinental Hotel here among ministers and onlookers was that the Saudis would move within a few months to raise prices and reduce production. And the agreement whereby most of the 12 other OPEC members will cut production 10 percent was viewed as an important precedent, although too vague to have a substantial impact.

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Around the World; U.N. Defends Payments For Favorable News Articles

Date: 29 May 1981

Special to the New York Times, Reuters

The senior United Nations information official today defended payments to newspapers for articles favorable to the organization, saying that $432,000 distributed among 15 newspapers in various countries was simply to reimburse the companies for the amount of newsprint used to publish the material. Yasushi Akashi, Under Secretary General for Public Information, said at a news conference that the newspapers had made a ''sacrifice'' to print the material and expressed regret that the American and British press had spurned the offer.

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TIRELESS TROUBLE-SHOOTER FOR THE U.S.

Date: 28 May 1981

By Irvin Molotsky, Special To the New York Times

Irvin Molotsky

When Philip C. Habib was selected to try to head off an Israeli-Syrian clash over Syria's missiles in Lebanon, White House and State Department officials were attracted by his past record as a negotiator in one seemingly insoluble problem after another. The 61-year-old Mr. Habib is described by his friends and colleagues as tireless in his pursuit of a solution. Moreover, they point out, he is also a Lebanese-American, with a heritage that has opened doors for him in the Middle East. The special Middle East envoy, who began his mission for President Reagan on May 7 and was called home by the President today for consultations, was a career State Department officer whose previous diplomatic challenges included South Korea, Vietnam and Lebanon. At his retirement in 1978 because of a heart condition, Mr. Habib had risen to Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, the highest career position in the Foreign Service.

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News Summary; FRIDAY, MAY 29, 1981

Date: 29 May 1981

International Israel jets swept over Lebanon and destroyed what a military spokesman described as a complex of Libyan antiaircraft missile batteries guarding Palestinian guerrilla positions south of Beirut. The spokesman said that the attack was made after missiles had been fired at Israeli reconnaissance planes. (Page A1 Column 6.) Reports from around Lebanon contrasted with Israel's announcement that its planes had destroyed missile batteries at only one encampment. Jets from Israel struck at Palestinian guerrilla camps in wide-ranging raids along Lebanon's Mediterranean coast and also reportedly in the southeastern part of the country. (A10:1-4.)

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News Summary; THURSDAY, MAY 28, 1981

Date: 28 May 1981

International Philip C. Habib was recalled to Washington for consultations on what the United States should do next in seeking to avert an Israeli-Syrian clash over Syria's stationing of antiaircraft missiles in Lebanon. Mr. Habib, the special American envoy, has been in the Middle East for three weeks. Officials said that the main diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis were being left to Saudi Arabia until Mr. Habib returned to the region, probably late next week. (Page A1, Columns 3-4.) Israel pledged to back further efforts to solve its differences with Lebanon peacefully, but Prime Minister Menachem Begin charged that Syria had mobilized reserves and increased the deployment of missiles in Syria in apparent preparation for battle. (A3:3-6.)

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News of Music; A FEAST OF OPERA AWAITS TV VIEWERS

Date: 28 May 1981

By Peter G. Davis

Peter Davis

OPERA fans have much to anticipate when the fall television season gets under way -a far cry from the days, not so long ago, when opera on the home screen was considered television box-office poison. The turning point came with the first ''Live From the Met'' telecast over the Public Broadcasting Service on March 15, 1977, a ''La Boheme'' with Renata Scotto and Luciano Pavarotti that attracted an unprecedented 7,655,000 viewers. Since then, opera has become an increasingly important ingredient in PBS's programming, and the 1981-82 lineup promises more than ever. The Metropolitan leads off on Sept. 30 with ''La Traviata,'' taped last March 28, with Ileana Cotrubas, Placido Domingo and Cornell MacNeil. Also scheduled is a ''Rigoletto'' starring Christiane Eda-Pierre, Mr. Pavarotti and Sherrill Milnes, and the company's new production of ''La Boheme.'' James Levine conducts all three operas. Two or three other ''Live From the Met'' telecasts are in the planning stage, with operas and casts to be announced later.

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