The Week February 13-19

NATION

Trade Tiff

The Clinton Administration has decided to impose sanctions on Japan for violating a 1989 trade agreement that would have allowed cellular-phone giant Motorola the same access to the lucrative Tokyo-Nagoya market that Japanese companies enjoy. Japan denies that they have violated the agreement. The President did not foreclose the possibility that American sanctions might be the first volley in a trade war with Japan. Earlier this month, talks between the nations broke down.

On the Road

President Clinton and his wife Hillary took to the hustings to rally support for their embattled health-care reforms, which have been overshadowed lately by rival plans in Congress. In a speech to 2,000 senior citizens in New Jersey, the President wooed the nation's powerful elderly voters by vowing to protect Medicare.

Saudis Buy U.S. Jets

Thanks to a strenuous lobbying effort by the Clinton Administration, Boeing and McDonnell Douglas will sell 50 commercial jets worth $6 billion to Saudi Arabia -- generating jobs for tens of thousands of Americans in the voter-rich Los Angeles and Seattle areas.

Whitewater

A U.S. district court judge agreed to impanel a special grand jury to focus on the federal investigation of President Clinton's Whitewater real estate venture and its links to a failed S&L. Special counsel Robert Fiske informed the judge that the probe may last 18 months. In a related development, federal bank regulators cleared Hillary Clinton's old law firm in Little Rock, Arkansas, of any conflict of interest regarding its association with the same S&L.

Tailhook Adieu

Admiral Frank B. Kelso II, Chief of Naval Operations, announced that he would retire two months early, in April, in exchange for an official tribute from the Pentagon meant to clear him of wrongdoing in the Tailhook scandal. Earlier this month, a Navy judge dismissed the last three Navy Tailhook cases on the grounds that they had been tainted by Kelso's efforts to conceal his knowledge of the affair.

A Stolen Election Returned

A federal judge nullified a November 1993 election for a Pennsylvania state- senate seat, declaring that it had been won fraudulently by a Democrat. Supporters of William G. Stinson practiced "deception, intimidation, harassment and forgery," wrote the judge. His decision returns the seat to the Republican candidate and could put the G.O.P. in control of the entire state senate.

I Confess

After maintaining his innocence for the past two years, Danny Rolling, accused of murdering five college students in Gainesville, Florida, in 1990, pleaded guilty to all charges against him. "There are some things you just can't run from, this being one of those," Rolling told the judge.

Courtroom Roundup

In San Antonio, Texas, the defense rested its case in the trial of 11 Branch Davidians charged with murdering four federal agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms last February. The jury is expected to get the case late this week. Meanwhile, in New York City, lawyers continued their closing arguments in the World Trade Center trial of four defendants linked to the bombing a year ago that killed six people and injured 1,000.

Texas Chain-Saw Editing