NEW YORK boasts a number of attractive settings for live music, but the South Street Seaport, situated at Fulton Street and the East River, is probably the most spectacular. The lights of the Brooklyn Bridge glitter to the north, the skyscrapers of Lower Manhattan shine to the south, and the collection of historic sailing ships, which range from small schooners to the four-masted barque Peking, ride at anchor up and down the Seaport's Pier 16. Listeners bring blankets, cushions or chairs and sit on the pier for the concerts. And this summer there will be plenty of them.

Beginning tonight, there will be jazz concerts every Friday and Saturday through Aug. 29. Starting time is 8 P.M. and admission is free. And beginning this Sunday, a special series of 10 jazz and pop concerts will take place at the Seaport. Leon Russell, Dizzy Gillespie, Paul Butterfield, and Dave Brubeck are among the stars who will be taking part. These concerts will cost $10 a ticket, with proceeds going to preserve the Seaport's historic ships. In addition, beginning Thursday, June 11, there will be weekly bluegrass concerts ($4) and square dances ($3.50) as well.

The South Street Seaport's hectic summer music schedule is particularly impressive at a time when funds for the arts are being slashed dramatically. The series of free jazz concerts, which is called Summerpier and is entering its second year, is sponsored by Mobil Oil. The 10 celebrity benefit concerts are being produced by the Seaport Museum with the help of grants from Bankers Trust Company and Beck's Beer. They are intended to help raise matching funds for a National Endowment for the Humanities Challenge Grant and a grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The popular summer bluegrass series at the South Street Seaport is privately produced by Doug Tuchman of the Bluegrass Club of New York and is in its 10th year. Historic and Musical

Although the South Street Seaport Museum's basic goal is the preservation of one of the city's oldest historic landmarks and the ships that are an integral part of it, Seaport Museum officials see the expanding summer concert series as an important contribution to the city's contemporary musical life.

''I'm a native New Yorker,'' says Carol Morgan, the museum's director of public information, ''and to me the juxtaposition of our historic ships and the modern skyscrapers, or of the 19th-century mercantile buildings near the pier and the new music that's an important part of our jazz concerts, capture what New York is all about. It's a place where the old and the new coexist. It's also an island and most New Yorkers tend to forget that. When you come to a concert here, you're reminded that you're living on the ocean. The ships and the sea gulls and the modern buildings combine to make it a very special place to hear music, and the musicians seem to like it, too. They have a view of the ships while they're playing. 'It's wonderful not to have to perform in a steamy room for a sea of glazed eyes,' one of them told me recently.''

The Seaport's free Summerpier series begins tonight with the Multinational Band, the 26-piece ensemble led by the bassist and composer Saheb Sarbib that plays contemporary jazz with a variety of ethnic colorations. Mr. Sarbib and his band will also be performing tomorrow night. Next weekend, Noel Pointer, the classically trained pop-jazz violinist and vocalist, will perform on Friday, June 12, and Zahir Batin's Notorious Ensemble, a crackling jazz combo that updates the ''hard bop'' sound of the 1950's and 60's, will play on Saturday, June 13. Coming attractions include the jazz guitarist O'Donel Levy on June 19 and 20, the composer and multiinstrumentalist David Amram on July 10 and 11, the innovative alto saxophonist Marion Brown on July 24 and 25, and the trombonist Melba Liston's all-woman big band on Aug. 28 and 29. All concerts begin at 8 P.M. The number to call for more information is 766-9020. Save Our Ships Benefit

Leon Russell, the rock and country singer and pianist, and the New Grass Revival, a proficient bluegrass band, kick off the Seaport Museum's Save Our Ships Benefit Concert Sunday night at 8 P.M. The $10 general admission tickets are available through Ticketron, Chargit and the South Street Seaport Museum box office. Coming benefit concerts include Lionel Hampton on Wednesday, June 17, at 7:30 P.M.; the jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, with the flutist Bobbi Humphrey, on Sunday, June 28, at 8 P.M.; the blues and rock harmonica virtuoso Paul Butterfield and the fine blues and jazz singer Esther Phillips on Wednesday, July 1, at 7:30 P.M., and Todd Rundgren's rock quartet Utopia on Sunday, July 5, at 8 P.M. The Average White Band will be performing on Sunday, July 19, the popular jazz musicians Dave Brubeck and Herbie Mann share a concert on Wednesday, Aug. 12, and Buddy Rich and his big band conclude the series on Wednesday, Aug. 26.

Doug Tuchman will be presenting the weekly bluegrass concerts at the Seaport as well as the weekly square dance series, which features professional dance callers and bands and which begins Tuesday, June 9. Tickets are available at the Seaport or through the Bluegrass Club of New York. The club's information number is 687-9000.

The first of the bluegrass concerts will feature D.W. Griffiths and the Rank Strangers and one of the more popular regional bluegrass bands, the Yankee Rebels, and will be at 8 P.M. this Thursday, June 11. Among the highlights of the summer series are a July 9 concert by the young, traditionally rooted but often progressive banjo player Tony Trischka on July 9; the first American appearance by Transatlantic Bluegrass, France's most celebrated bluegrass band, on July 23; John Herald, the fine singer from the original Greenbriar Boys, on Aug. 6, and Del McCoury, one of the music's most gifted tenor singers, with his crack band, the Dixie Pals, on Aug. 13. All concerts are at 8 P.M.

To make sure that everything goes smoothly, there are a few rules. Picnic baskets are welcome, but alcohol is not. And listeners who want to sit close to the stage are advised to come early. ''The Summerpier series drew more than 60,000 people last year,'' says the Seaport Museum's Carol Morgan, ''and this year we expect a lot more. Fifteen years ago, people would have been afraid to come down to the waterfront, especially after dark. The place was generally thought of as desolate and gray. But these concerts are bringing about a change in public perception of the waterfront. We want to make it a place where people can enjoy music they haven't been exposed to and remember the city's heritage at the same time.''

Illustrations: photo of Saheb Sarbib at South St. Seaport


WASHINGTON, Dec. 3— The Government has received detailed reports that five terrorists trained in Libya entered the United States last weekend with plans to assassinate President Reagan or other senior Administration officials, according to top Federal law-enforcement officials.

The reports, which the officials declined to discuss in detail, have prompted a huge nationwide search for the potential assassins and Americans to whom they might turn for assistance, these officials said.

Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Secret Service have been deployed around the country in recent days to question Americans who have past links to Libya, including veterans of the Army Special Forces, or Green Berets, who have worked there training terrorists in an operation organized by a former American intelligence agent, Edwin P. Wilson. Search On for Mercenaries

Agents of the F.B.I. in the field said in telephone interviews that they had orders to find and question other military veterans who had worked overseas in mercenary operations and were skilled in the handling of weapons and explosives.

Concern about a Libyan threat has mounted in recent weeks as initially unconfirmed intelligence reports were buttressed by information supplied by an informant who has given American intelligence agencies first-hand descriptions of the training and plans for assassinations, according to senior Administration officials.

They said that this informant, who has been closely questioned by the F.B.I., the Secret Service and the Central Intelligence Agency, told the Government that he helped train assassination teams in Libya and worked on the preparation of specific plans to attack President Reagan and other top Government officials.

These plans, intelligence and law-enforcement officials said today, include a plot to kill Mr. Reagan by shooting down Air Force One, the Presidential jet, with a surface-to-air missile, blowing up the President's limousine with a rocket or attacking the President at close range with small arms. The informer, who is not an American but was otherwise not identified by these sources, also supplied the Government with detailed information about the infiltration of terrorists into the United States. It is not known whether he provided names or descriptions of assassination team members.

Intelligence officials said the informer's account had stood up to intense questioning and his credibility, which is now considered good, had ''made believers'' out of law-enforcement officials. His information has also been echoed by other sources, including intelligence information received early in the fall that Muammar el-Qaddafi, the leader of Libya, was planning to seek revenge for the shooting down of two Libyan jets in an aerial dogfight with American planes last August.

The apparent threat against the President has led to a significant increase in security for Mr. Reagan and other top Government officials, according to White House aides.

Officials said, for example, that Air Force One had been equipped with sophisticated electronic equipment that would allow pilots to evade a missile attack. Mr. Reagan has also begun riding in unmarked cars instead of his official limousine in Presidential motorcades. In addition, the Secret Service has recently begun sending ''dummy'' motorcades through Washington that appear to be carrying senior Administration officials but actually involve only security agents.

On Monday, on a flight aboard Air Force One from Cincinnati, President Reagan was asked in an interview with The Cleveland Plain Dealer whether he gave credence to the reports of Libyan assassination teams.

Referring to Colonel Qaddafi, Mr. Reagan said: ''As to his threats personally against me, I think in view of the record, you can't dismiss them out of hand. On the other hand, they're not going to change my life much. Beyond that, I never comment on security matters.'' Haig Security Increased

State Department officials said earlier this week that security for Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. had also been increased recently.

The Associated Press today quoted unidentified sources as saying that Mr. Reagan had ordered Secret Service protection for his three top aides, James A. Baker, the White House chief of staff; his deputy, Michael K. Deaver, and counselor Edwin Meese 3d. The report could not be confirmed through official spokesmen.

Senior intelligence officials said today that there was evidence that the attempted shooting of an American diplomat in Paris last month was organized by Libya. In that attack, a gunmen fired six shots at Christian A, Chapman, the charge d'affaires at the American Embassy, as he was leaving his home. Mr. Chapman, who took shelter behind his car, was not hit. The gunman escaped.

These intelligence sources also said that the United States Ambassador to Italy, Maxwell M. Rabb, was the target of a Libyan assassination plot in October. Mr. Rabb was hastily flown out of Milan in October and returned to the United States after security officials learned that an attack might be imminent. He has returned to his post, but security measures have been increased.

Intelligence officials indicated today that C.I.A. analysts believe Colonel Qaddafi's initial anger following the downing of the two jets may have been further inflamed by published reports that the American Government was considering plans to underwrite an assassination attempt against the Libyan leader. These officials denied that the United States ever contemplated trying to kill Colonel Qaddafi. 'Have Absolute, Hard Proof'

''We have absolute, hard proof that Libya has sent assassination teams into other countries,'' said a senior intelligence official. ''When the first reports came in that Qaddafi might be considering attacks on American officials, they had to be viewed seriously, but some of the stories seemed unbelieveable. Those doubts have been overcome by the accounts of the informant. We consider this to be a very serious threat.''

Law enforcement officials said today that the assassination teams, which apparently include Libyans and recruits from other Middle Eastern nations, have orders to attack lesser Government officials if they fail to kill Mr. Reagan. There is also evidence, they said, that additional potential targets include members of Mr. Reagan's family.

''They want to make a sensation,'' said one senior law enforcement official. ''If they can't get the President, they're apparently under instructions to kill anyone close to him.''

Law enforcement officials said all American ports of entry were being closely monitored by the F.B.I., the Customs Service and other agencies. Particular attention is being paid to entry points on the border with Canada, including Detroit, where officials believe infiltration may be attempted.

The informer has told the Government that assassination team members may try to recruit Americans to help them, according to intelligence sources. They added that so far there was no indication that any of the assassination team members were trained in Libya by Americans or others working for Mr. Wilson, the former C.I.A. agent. He was charged last year with illegally shipping explosives to Libya as part of an operation to train terrorists there.


Mayor Koch, carrying Democratic and Republican endorsements, won a second term in a landslide yesterday as Democrats swept citywide and boroughwide offices.

The 56-year-old Mayor and his two Democratic running mates, City Council President Carol Bellamy and Comptroller Harrison J. Goldin, overwhelmed their opponents with at least 75 percent of the vote.

With 4,830 of 4,850 districts reporting, the vote for Mayor was: Edward I. Koch, D.,R.917,764 Frank J. Barbaro, Unity160,969 John A. Esposito, Cons.62,950 Mary T. Codd, Liberal43,416 Jeronimo Dominguez, R.t.L.35,826 Koch Takes Minority Areas

The Mayor won every Assembly District in the city, including black and Hispanic districts. During the campaign, minority politicians and some of Mr. Koch's opponents had charged that he was insensitive to the city's minorities. Eighty percent of his vote was on the Democratic line and the remainder on the Republican line.

In the most hotly contested election in the city, for Manhattan Borough President, the Democratic incumbent, Andrew J. Stein, defeated City Clerk David N. Dinkins, a Democrat who was the Liberal Party candidate.

In another significant election contest, Elizabeth Holtzman easily won election as District Attorney in Brooklyn and began a political comeback from her defeat by Alfonse M. D'Amato for the United States Senate last year. Simon Overwhelms Betancourt

And in the Bronx, Borough President Stanley Simon, running on the Democratic and Republican lines, overwhelmed Ismael Betancourt, a Democrat running on the Liberal line. It was one of several setbacks for the Liberal Party.

On Long Island, the Nassau County Executive, Francis T. Purcell, a Republican, won re-election, and in Westchester, County Executive Alfred DelBello, a Democrat, appeared to have been returned to office.

Statewide, the proposition doubling to $300,000 the authorization of the Job Development Authority was approved, while the fate of the $500 million prison bond issue was still in doubt with better than 90 percent of the vote counted.

In a special election for the Assembly in Brooklyn, a Democrat, Louis Freda, upset Robert J. DiCarlo in the 49th District in the Bath Beach and Bay Ridge sections. Mr. DiCarlo was attempting to succeed his father, Dominick DiCarlo, who was appointed an assistant Secretary of State in the Reagan Administration.

The turnout in New York City was about 1.2 million, the lowest in more than 20 years and less than 50 percent of the registration, which also was at its lowest in decades. The turnout was even lower in minority areas outside Manhattan, the scene of the Stein-Dinkins struggle. Mayor Admits Some Problems

Despite the heavy vote for the Mayor - which in minority areas may have had more to do with party affiliation than sympathy for Mr. Koch - he acknowledged his problems with minority voters in his victory remarks.

He was winning in minority districts by as much as 5 to 1, but in white districts by as much as 12 to 1. ''I promise you also that I will do all I can in the next four years to ease racial tension, to heal wounds, to unite this city,'' the Mayor told several hundred supporters at the Sheraton Centre.

''While I do not intend to abandon principle or fiscal realism,'' he said, ''I believe I have an obligation to reach out and ask those who have been dissatisfied with my record, who have opposed me in the past, to join in finding acceptable ways to end discrimination, to offer hope to the poor, to pull the city together.''

The Mayor's victory - even more impressive than those of his running mates because he had six opponents - makes him one of the most powerful politicians in the state and one of the most influential mayors in the country.

Miss Bellamy is expected to use her victory with 79 percent of the vote as a springboard for a statewide candidacy next year for either Governor or Comptroller, while Mr. Goldin's 78 percent victory in the face of questions about his integrity and a well-financed campaign by his Republican opponent, Richard A. Bernstein, completes his political rehabilitaation after a defeat for State Comptroller in 1978.

The mayoral election has been one of the more unusual in recent years. In addition to Mr. Koch's endorsement by both major parties, there was a 12-day delay in the primary. The primary and general election ballots were constricted as the Justice Department rejected new City Council district boundaries as discriminatory against black and Hispanic residents, causing the postponement of primaries and elections for the Council. Council Must Start Over

The Council, which normally would have been up for election yesterday, must now redraw its lines to the satisfaction of the Justice Department and restart the usual four-month primary and election process.

The Mayor's experience in the 1977 and 1981 election campaigns was a case study in the shifting fortunes of a politician. Four years ago, he started out his mayoral campaign as a decided underdog with no discernible major power base. He was known as a liberal from Manhattan, but that was already being questioned by the so-called reform Democrats with whom he had started his political career.

In the general election campaign against Mr. Cuomo, he was perceived as the liberal candidate who appealed to the city's black and Hispanic minorities, among others. Two of his first appointments were Basil A. Paterson and Herman Badillo as Deputy Mayors.

In this year's campaign, Mr. Koch's principal opposition came from the liberal wing of his own party. He had been endorsed by the city's Republicans, who are among the most conservative Republicans in the state. He had even considered briefly a Conservative Party endorsement. Little Minority Support

His minority support had eroded to the point where the administration's race relations as well as delivery of city services became a major issue in the campaign. This was especially the case after the Democratic and Republican primaries, in which minority districts, even in the Republican primary, voted as much as 2-to-1 against the Mayor.

The Mayor was perceived as so popular from the very beginning of the campaign that municipal labor union leaders and Liberal Party leaders opposed to him had to settle for relatively obscure opponents, Mr. Barbaro and Mrs. Codd. Republican Party leaders offered no opponents.

This perception of Koch invincibility tended to be self-fufilling, as contributors turned away from the Mayor's opponents. Among them, Mr. Barbaro raised the most money, about $200,000 for the primary and the general election. The Mayor raised and spent more than $1.5 million.

Illustrations: Table of city balloting (Page B4) Photo of an elderly woman voting (Page B4) Photo of Mayor Edward Koch


PARIS, April 15— France has paid the American space shuttle a handsome compliment. It was not the message of congratulations that President Valery Giscard d'Estaing sent President Reagan this morning, saying that all humanity should be proud of the ''remarkable contribution American scientists, technicians and astronauts have made to the conquest of space and the mastery of space flight.''

Neither was it the equally effusive message sent by his principal rival in this month's Presidential elections, Francois Mitterrand, the Socialist leader, who praised the ''human and technical daring of the American space shuttle.''

The compliment came, rather, from French public opinion, which for the first time forced the Government-controlled television service to postpone two scheduled party political broadcasts in the middle of the election campaign so that viewers could watch the shuttle's successful return to earth yesterday.

Originally, the French networks planned to interrupt their live coverage a few minutes before the shuttle's expected touchdown and turn to broadcasts by two candidates in this month's elections, Georges Marchais, the French Communist Party leader, and former Prime Minister Michel Debre, a right-wing splinter candidate.

All afternoon irate French viewers, already bored by what is proving to be an insipid campaign, telephoned the French television services' headquarters and demanded live coverage of the shuttle landing. But the political broadcasts had been approved by a special commission set up to insure fair play in the campaign, and could not be changed without its permission.

Finally, word of the public outcry reached the candidates themselves, who realized they might suffer at the polls for upstaging the shuttle. Both candidates quickly persuaded the commission to postpone their broadcasts until after the landing, although they insisted that viewers be told they had requested the delay.

The enthusiasm that French viewers so clearly felt for the shuttle was reflected in today's newspapers, which ran banner headlines on its safe return to earth. For Le Figaro, a conservative morning paper, the success of the shuttle program was a ''triumph'' for the United States after the ''political and military setbacks of the Carter Administration,'' establishing a firm American lead over the Soviet Union in space technology. More Exciting Than Apollo

Other newspapers, representing a wide variety of political views, congratulated the United States on the flight of the space shuttle Columbia, which they said was evidence that America remained the most technologically advanced nation in the world despite recent doubts about the strength of its economy and its sense of political purpose.

Many said they regarded the shuttle as intrinsically more exciting than the Appollo moon landing because it opened the door to the ''colonization of space.'' Even the Communist daily, L'Humanite, said in its headline on an article about the flight, ''The Majestic Return of the Columbia.''

Nevertheless, several newspapers worried about the implications of the shuttle for the arms race, fearing that the Soviet Union would feel that the United States had established a military lead in space that it must try in some way to match.

Considerable attention was given in editorial columns to the Pentagon's interest in the shuttle and the support the program has had from military-minded members of the House and the Senate.

''The success of the Columbia was magnificent,'' Le Monde said, ''but it unfortunately also recalls that scientific and technical progress is all too often the result of military ambition.''

The shuttle's success has prompted concern about the future of Europe's own modest space program. The European Space Agency, to which most Western European nations belong, has a direct interest in the shuttle because it is constructing part of the space laboratory that the Columbia is expected to carry aloft eventually.

But, as a satellite-launching vehicle, the shuttle is also a potential competitor for the Ariane rocket, the European Space agency's major current project. Discussing this matter, Le Monde's scientific correspondent predicted that the shuttle would establish itself as the most economical vehicle for launching groups of satellites but added that rockets like Ariane would continue to be useful for specialized satellite launchings. ---- Soviet Comment on Columbia By ANTHONY AUSTIN Special to the New York Times

MOSCOW, April 15 - The Soviet evening television news program devoted about 30 seconds today to film clips showing the Columbia landing and its two astronauts being greeted after getting off the plane that took them to Houston.

The Soviet commentator, reading from a New York dispatch by Tass, the official Soviet press agency, said the new feature of the American spaceship was that it could be re-used and should be able to put payloads into orbit at a lower cost than rockets.

''These characteristics of the re-usable ships,'' the Tass dispatch said, ''can serve both in the exploration of space for peaceful purposes and in the solution of tasks of a purely military nature.''

Tass then quoted American officials and the American press to the effect that the shuttle would be used mostly for military purposes. The dispatch reported that unnamed American observers said that, although shuttles could be used as orbital stations for research and experiments, ''these will not be the long-term stations of the Salyut type, but laboratories intended to stay in orbit at best for several weeks.''

In this morning's Soviet newspapers, coverage of the shuttle landing was limited to a brief Tass dispatch.


In a victory for Mayor Koch, the Board of Estimate yesterday ended five days of debate over foster care and voted to approve $185 million in contracts with 72 foster care agencies for the coming fiscal year.

On Thursday the board, against the strong urging of the Mayor, voted to reject renewing the one-year contracts with the child-care agencies. which are responsible for the well-being of 26,000 children.

City Council President Carol Bellamy had led the fight to reject the contracts on the ground that the city had evaluated the performance of only a handful of the agencies and did not know whether they were complying with the reforms in foster care mandated by the board two years ago.

Over the weekend, which many members of the board said was punctuated by periodic calls from senior mayoral aides soliciting their support of the foster-care contracts, Borough President Andrew J. Stein of Manhattan changed his position, and yesterday he voted with the Mayor to award the contracts. A Difference in Style

Describing the battle for board votes, Jesse Masyr, Mr. Stein's representative on the board, said that Miss Bellamy ''never broke arms for votes - that's not her style.''

But when asked about the style of the Mayor's two principal lobbyists for the contracts, Deputy Mayor Nathan Leventhal and Peter A. Piscitelli, a senior aide, Mr. Masyr retorted:

''I understand both of them are listed with the Orthopedic Surgeons of America.'' The contracts will permit the 72 voluntary agencies, most of which are represented by one of the three major voluntary organizations in the city - Catholic Charities, the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies and the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies - to continue running child-care facilities for homeless children.

Harrison J. Goldin, the City Comptroller, who has previously sided with Miss Bellamy in criticizing foster-care agencies and deficiencies in the city's supervision of them, denied that he had departed from his earlier stance by voting with the Mayor. But he attacked the Office of Special Services for Children, the division of the Human Resources Administration responsible for the supervision of the child-care agencies.

''The problem is less with the voluntary agencies than with S.S.C.,'' Mr. Goldin said. The city agency, which was charged by the board two years ago to conduct assessments of the 72 foster care agencies under city contract, has completed only seven of them.

Mayor Koch said he was delegating Mr. Leventhal to oversee Special Services for Children. ''If they don't do a better job, they're going to be shaken up,'' Mr. Koch said. ''We're not in any way happy with the agency.''


Sandor Rado, a Hungarian cartographer who served as a Soviet intelligence agent in World War II, died Wednesday in Budapest. He was 81 years old.

Mr. Rado joined the Communist Party in 1918 and was active during Hungary's short-lived Communist regime under Bela Kun. Later, as head of a geographic news service, he kept close Soviet connections throughout his life.

In 1920-22, he was Vienna correspondent for Rosta, the early Soviet press agency. During a stay in Moscow, in the mid-1920's, he published one of the first tourist guides of the Soviet Union.

While running Geopress, a map news service he founded in 1927, he was recruited by Soviet military intelligence during a visit to Moscow in 1935.

When World War II broke out four years later, Mr. Rado was living in Geneva. Using the cover name ''Dora,'' he became an important source of information to Moscow. Among 20-odd intelligence reports filed by Mr. Rado and quoted in his memoirs is one dated June 17, 1941, five days before the German invasion of the Soviet Union. It said:

''About 100 infantry divisions, one third of them motorized, are ranged along the German-Soviet border. Also 10 armored divisions.'' Soviet historians contend that such invasion warnings were ignored by Stalin for fear of antagonizing Hitler and that Soviet forces were therefore unprepared when the attack came.

Like many others who had served abroad, Mr. Rado was imprisoned in 1945 on returning to the Soviet Union. On his release, in 1955, after Stalin's death, he settled in Hungary and was later awarded high Soviet and Hungarian decorations for his wartime service.

In Budapest, he headed the Government Mapping Service and, in 1965, founded Cartactual, a news service designed to keep mapmakers abreast of changes around the world. From 1958 to 1966, he taught at the Karl Marx University of Economics in Budapest. A short, obese man, Mr. Rado became a familiar figure at international conferences.

His memoirs, ''Code Name Dora,'' were published in Hungarian in 1970 and in English in 1977 by Abelard-Schuman.


It does not matter whether Pat Moynihan or his former baby sitter, David Stockman, invented the phrase. When the New York Senator and White House budget director agree on anything these days, attention should be paid. They agree that nine months after an impressive takeoff, the Reagan Administration needs a major ''mid-course correction.'' It certainly does.

Mr. Reagan is running low on fuel - the Federal revenues needed to reach his governmental destinations. He has also veered too far to the right, risking the loss of a favorable political wind. And his national security panel is signaling fog ahead.

The President retains the country's confidence and uses it well. He is flexible and shrewdly opportunistic. But will he re-examine his pre-flight premises in time?

Most troubling is the evident miscalculation on revenues. As Mr. Moynihan observes, the President chose to fly blind with a radical theory that huge tax cuts would, almost instantly, pay for themselves. ''We would use the increased revenues the Federal Government would get from this tax decrease,'' he said, ''to rebuild our defense capabilities.''

Tax rates were thus enthusiastically reduced. Military commitments were confidently made and the rest of the budget was painfully cut. But there was no instant recovery - even of expectations. The balanced budget remains a distant dream.

So now the White House wants to ditch more social programs and pass others to already burdened states and cities. But what all levels of government foreseeably need to do they cannot foreseeably afford to do.

One can dispute the size of the shortfall, but not the need for more revenue over the next three years. The most wasteful tax cuts - for oil refiners, for example - should be rescinded. The most costly tax cuts, on estates and incomes, should be delayed. The least necessary military programs, like the B-1 bomber, should be dropped.

That would greatly reduce Government borrowing, allow interest rates to fall and provide a real stimulus to depressed industries, notably construction. The tax cuts simply cannot induce prosperity while expensive money retards expansion.

More than pride, however, hinders the necessary corrections. Uncertain ideology and diplomacy are also getting in the President's way.

Too many in Mr. Reagan's circle welcome the revenue shortage. The less money, they figure, the less Government; they'd rather be right than airborne. But their shifting of wealth from the middle classes to the well-to-do is not the public's understanding of the Reagan mandate. Nor is it really the President's, as he belatedly acknowledged in the storm over Social Security.

A further weakness has been the failure to define the strategic purposes of a rapidly rising military budget. Bureaucratic wars rather than foreign dangers too often explain excessive orders for new hardware. But it was the President who taught that national security, like prosperity, depends above all on a healthy economy. As diplomatic and military choices crowd in, he needs finally to rank his priorities abroad and justify their cost.

The passengers are restive, but not because they can't tighten belts or take the bumps. They mainly ask whether the pilot knows how to get back on course.


HARTFORD UP to last week, the most publicity that Bradford L. Peery had generated for his campaign for the United States Senate may have occurred last September when he was robbed on a subway platform in Manhattan.

He lost $100 in cash, some credit cards and a pocket calculator in the incident, but at least he got his name in many of the Connecticut newspapers and news broadcasts.

Mr. Peery, a 43-year-old financial analyst from Westport, has been running for the Republican nomination for the Senate for almost a year, but for the most part it has been a lonely quest.

The news accounts about the 1982 Senate race in Connecticut have focused on other candidates, such as United States Representative Toby Moffett and John Downey, the former chairman of the Department of Public Utility Control, who are seeking the Democratic nomination, and the incumbent Senator, Lowell P. Weicker Jr., who is about to be challenged for the Republican nomination by Prescott Bush Jr., the brother of Vice President George Bush.

But Mr. Peery has a different view of the campaign as he demonstrated last Tuesday at a press conference at the Holiday Inn here where he formally announced his candidacy.

Mr. Peery said he had started out thinking his goal would be to get the votes of 20 percent of the delegates to the Democratic State Convention next summer, which would enable him to wage a primary election campaign for the nomination. ''Now,'' he said, ''I think I can win the convention outright.''

Mr. Peery said he was undeterred by politicians and others who say he has no chance of winning. He is making his first run for elective office. He also is a former Democrat who started out doing some fund raising last year for the campaign of Senator Christopher J. Dodd.

But with the election of Ronald Reagan as President, Mr. Peery decided that his future was in the Republican party, and he is staking out a position to the right of both Mr. Weicker and Mr. Moffett. His aim, Mr. Peery said, was to build a coalition of Republicans, independents and conservative Democrats.

At his press conference, for example, Mr. Peery said that Mr. Weicker in reality was ''a liberal Democrat.'' He called the incumbent Republican ''an obstructionist, who votes against things, not for things.'' He also said that Mr. Weicker's votes had given the Democrats effective control of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, although the Republicans nominally have a 9 to 7 majority on the committee.

''Moffett is worse,'' Mr. Peery continued. He said Mr. Moffett wanted to increase the size of government. He also said that Mr. Moffett had once stated that deficits did not contribute to inflation. ''Toby Moffett is an economic illiterate if he believes that statement,'' Mr. Peery said.

For his part, Mr. Peery, who is a financial analyst for Paine Webber Mitchell Hutchins Inc., said that President Reagan's economic program will work to reduce inflation and increase investment. He said savings could be achieved in military spending by closing obsolete bases and eliminating programs such as the A-6 fighter plane. He said that the Navy's introduction of new technology during the construction of the Trident submarines at Groton had increased costs and delayed completion of the submarines. He also said that the Social Security system should be strengthened with such things as a gradual increase in the retirement age to 68 to reflect longer life expectancies.

Mr. Peery, noting that Mr. Reagan had carried Connecticut last year, said Mr. Weicker could not win a Republican primary election. ''A fiscal conservative Republican should be able to beat two liberal Democrats in a three-way race,'' he said of Mr. Weicker and Mr. Moffett.

Mr. Peery did not mention Mr. Bush in his remarks, but in response to a question he said that he had ''30 years'' on Mr. Bush. Mr. Peery said he had spent 15 years studying the effects of government policies as an analyst of the aerospace and telecommunications industry and was 15 years younger than Mr. Bush.

With his formal announcement, Mr. Peery said his campaign had entered its third phase. The first phase, he said, had been to introduce himself to the news media with meetings and interviews. The second phase was to meet with Republican organizations around the state. Phase three, he added, will focus on gaining the support of delegates to the state convention, raising money and broadening his base of support.

Mr. Peery distributed a list of 25 names of persons he said were actively supporting him. He described it as a ''partial'' list of supporters.

He said he was heading to Washington to meet with possible campaign consultants and would have a full-time campaign director in place soon.

He also said he was undeterred by estimates that a full-fledged Senate campaign in the state may cost as much as $2 million next year.

He estimated that $100,000 would be needed to campaign for the support of convention delegates and that getting on the ballot for a primary election would stimulate additional contributions.

''If I can get on the ballot in a primary, I'm sure I can raise the money,'' he said. ''The money comes in stages as you prove yourself.''

Illustrations: photo of Bradford Peery


It appears that the writer of your May 30 editorial ''Armored in Ignorance'' did not do a complete background investigation. A copy of the editorial was sent to me anonymously. I suspect that my benefactor was someone in our local school administration.

As a parent of three schoolchildren, I started wondering what was being taught in the classroom when my 10th-grader told me that he had to answer some ''weird'' questions in a business communications course. Here are two examples:

''Which of these three things would you least like to do: Get a girl pregnant and have to marry her, date a person of another race or be hooked on hard drugs?''

''Which of the following would you most easily give up: Political freedom, economic freedom or religious freedom?'' When I asked the teacher and the principal what these questions had to do with business, I was told that they are value-judgment questions. They have no right or wrong answers but instead show that ''in the business world you are dealing with people of many different values.''

What nonsense! Two weeks of class time were spent on such questions, taken from ''Values Clarification,'' a book by Simon, Howe and Kirschenbaum. To my utter amazement, my ninth-grader told me she had similar questions in choir.

After questioning my children in more detail, I discovered that in English, as part of ''creative writing,'' they had been given these sentences to complete: ''I am ashamed when....'' - ''My greatest fear is.... - ''My father says I am....''

After extensive research into curriculum K-12 in the Plano Independent School District, I found a great number of exercises that are a waste of time, forms of ''sensitivity training'' and an invasion of privacy. I have talked with many former teachers of the P.I.S.D., who quit because ''secular humanism is promoted in the schools,'' not only here but nationwide. Teachers still employed here are afraid to take a stand because they might lose their jobs.

Curriculum guides and textbooks do not have ''Secular Humanism'' printed on them; the key words are ''affective,'' ''selfactualization,'' ''self-determined life style,'' etc. Individual thinking is neglected in favor of group consensus. Sex education is not a simple study of the reproductive system but an indoctrination program. Patriotism is downplayed in favor of ''global interdependence.''

Some counselors no longer help children select courses but give them ''transactional analysis.'' Many teachers now have certificates in counseling so that they too might be able to ''give the children guidance because parents don't know anything anyway.'' A teacher actually made that statement to me in all seriousness.

This form of ''education'' began really catching on in some parts of the country in the late 50's; by the early 60's, our colleges and universities started to graduate teachers thoroughly inmbued with this type of thinking. The S.A.T. and A.C.T. scores began a dramatic decline in 1965, as ''affective'' teaching, aided by computers, permeated the public school system.

For your own information, and before you condemn questioning parents, why don't you do a little investigative reporting? Start by reading ''The Humanist Manifesto,'' published by Prometheus Books. It might surprise you to see how many educators signed it. The first manifesto, written in 1933, was signed by John Dewey, the ''Father of Progressive Education.''

My three schoolchildren are no longer enrolled in the P.I.S.D. We are under a financial burden sending them to private schools but know it is well worth it.

I believe in public education, and for that reason continue to take an interest in the schools, and in politics, as the two are tied closely together. The trusting American public has been wondering what is wrong with our young people, blaming themselves but not looking at the school curriculum. They are not aware of the ''manipulation of schoolchildren by utopian planners.'' The quote is from a speech President Reagan made on March 20.

As a member of the ''Archie/Jughead'' generation, I am grateful to the tough teachers I had. They instilled respect for authority, knowledge, hard work and discipline. Without those values we will soon become a nation of hedonists looking to government for handouts. SARA PYLE, Plano, Tex., June 10, 1981

Summary: To the Editor:    It appears that the writer of your May 30 editorial ''Armored in Ignorance'' did not do a complete background investigation. A copy of the editorial was sent to me anonymously. I suspect that my benefactor was someone in our local school administration.    As a parent of three schoolchildren, I started wondering what was being taught in the classroom when my 10th-grader told me that he had to answer some ''weird'' questions in a business communications course. Here are two examples:   ''Which of these three things would you least like to do: Get a girl pregnant and have to marry her, date a person of another race or be hooked on hard drugs?''


Pulitzer Prizes were awarded yesterday to an 85-year-old composer, Roger Sessions; to a poet, Sylvia Plath, who, at the age of 30, committed suicide 19 years ago; to John Updike for a novel that was the third in a trilogy, and to a drama by Charles Fuller.

In journalism, three news organizations took two prizes each - The New York Times, the jointly owned Kansas The winners and their work, page B4. City Star and Kansas City Times, and The Associated Press. The gold medal for public service went to The Detroit News.

Mr. Sessions, who turned 85 last December, won the music prize for last year's ''Concerto for Orchestra.'' Eight years ago he received a special Pulitzer citation ''for his life's work as a distinguished American composer.''

Miss Plath killed herself in London in 1963, and most of her poetry was published after her death, including ''The Collected Poems,'' which won the prize this year. The book was published last year.

Mr. Updike won the fiction award for ''Rabbit Is Rich,'' his latest novel about a man nicknamed Rabbit who is the owner of an automobile dealership. It follows ''Rabbit, Run,'' which was published in 1960, and ''Rabbit Redux,'' published in 1971.

The drama award went to Mr. Fuller for ''A Soldier's Play,'' which explores race relations at a military camp in 1944. It was presented by the Negro Ensemble Company off Broadway at Theater Four last November and has been playing there ever since.

The Times winners were John Darnton and Jack Rosenthal. Mr. Darnton was honored for his reporting from Poland, where for two years he has been describing the nation's problems and the martial-law crackdown. Mr. Rosenthal, the deputy editorial page editor of The Times, won for a breadth of editorials last year ranging from the impact of President Reagan's policies to a discussion of intolerance against fat people.

There were 19 categories with prizes and one special citation announced by Michael I. Sovern, president of Columbia University, on the recommendations of the Pulitzer Prize Board. The board receives nominations from juries but can make its own choices without using the juries' advice if it wishes.

Some new procedures were introduced this year after a furor last year. The board met for two days instead of one to make a more intensive review of nominations, Jurors or their representatives were consulted in five instances on such questions as switching entries from one category to another or making an award different from the preference of a jury.

One result was that the gold medal for public service went to The Detroit News for a series by Sydney P. Freedberg and

Charles Fuller, the playwright who won the Pulitzer Prize for drama, said he was ''stunned'' and ''delighted'' by the news. Page C11. David Ashenfelter, which exposed Navy cover-ups of the circumstances of shipboard deaths. The board shifted The Detroit News nomination from its initial investigative reporting category.

The changed procedures followed a 1981 feature-reporting award to a reporter for The Washington Post. The Post withdrew its nomination after the reporter admitted that much of the story was a fabrication. The board had switched the story involved from a general-reporting entry without the knowledge of the jurors involved.

The award to Miss Plath marked the fourth time that the poetry prize has been awarded posthumously. Amy Lowell, Stephen Vincent Benet and William Carlos Williams died before their awards were made in 1926, 1944 and 1963. In 1981, the Pulitzer Prize for fiction went to a novelist who committed suicide - John Kennedy Toole, the author of ''A Confederacy of Dunces.'' He killed himself in 1969, and his mother finally got his work published.

Mr. Darnton is the son of Byron Darnton, who was The New York Times correspondent in New Guinea in World War II when he lost his life in 1942. The prizes to Mr. Darnton and Mr. Rosenthal brought to 50 the number of Pulitzer Prizes won by The Times and members of its staff.

These are the other awards in letters made in the 66th year of the prizes set up by the late Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of The New York World and other newspapers:

History - ''Mary Chesnut's Civil War,'' edited by C. Vann Woodward, who brought together parts of a diary of the wife of a member of the Confederate Government.

Biography - ''Grant: A Biography,'' by William S. McFeely, a professor at Mount Holyoke College. General nonfiction - ''The Soul of a New Machine,'' by Tracy Kidder, on computers and the people who make them. In music, a special citation was given to Milton Babbitt for ''his life's work as a distinguished and seminal American composer.'' The award for distinguished criticism went to Martin Bernheimer, a classical-music critic for The Los Angeles Times.

Other prizes in journalism were these: General local reporting - The Kansas City Star and The Kansas City Times, for their coverage of the Hyatt Regency Hotel disaster that killed 114 people and injured more than 200, and its causes, tracing critical problems.

Special local reporting - Paul Henderson of The Seattle Times, for proving the innocence of a man convicted of rape, leading officials to find a ''look-alike,'' who pleaded guilty.

National reporting - Rick Atkinson of The Kansas City Times, for ''stories of national import,'' including articles on waterresources problems and missile espionage.

Editorial cartooning - Ben Sargent, of The Austin (Tex.) American-Statesman, for such work as a drawing of an overweight boxer labeled ''Defense'' with a military ''manager'' insisting he could not fight if he was slimmer.

Spot news photography - Ron Edmonds of The Associated Press, for coverage of the attempt to assassinate President Reagan on March 30, 1981.

Feature photography - John H. White, of The Chicago Sun-Times, for a variety of subjects. Commentary - Art Buchwald of The Los Angeles Times Syndicate, for wit and humor columns. Feature writing - Saul Pett of The Associated Press, for an 8,500-word portrait of the United States Government. Handling Fee for Entries

To counter increased costs, the Pulitzer Prize Board announced a $20 handling fee for each entry in the journalism categories only, starting with the 1983 prizes. There were 1,200 journalism exhibits this year. The board also changed the drama deadline from March 31 to March 15.

Each prize includes a $1,000 grant, except for the public service award and the special citation. In addition to Mr. Sovern, the members of the board involved in the 1982 awards were: Osborn Elliott, dean of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. John Cowles Jr., president, The Minneapolis Star and Tribune. Hanna H. Gray, president, University of Chicago. Howard H. Hays Jr., editor and co-publisher, Riverside (Calif.) Press-Enterprise. Lee Hills, editorial chairman emeritus, Knight-Ridder Newspapers. David A. Laventhol, publisher and chief executive officer, Newsday. Richard H. Leonard, editor and senior vice president, The Milwaukee Journal. William F. McIlwain, editor, The Arkansas Gazette. Eugene C. Patterson, editor and president, The St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times. Warren H. Phillips, chairman and chief executive officer, Dow Jones & Company. Joseph Pulitzer Jr., editor and publisher, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. William J. Raspberry, columnist, The Washington Post. Charlotte Saikowski, chief editorial writer, The Christian Science Monitor. Roger W. Wilkins, senior fellow, Joint Center for Political Studies. Thomas Winship, editor, The Boston Globe. Robert C. Christopher, secretary of the Pulitzer Prize Board.

Board members do not participate in and are not present during discussions of any category in which their organizations are involved.

Illustrations: photo of Charles Fuller (page B4) photo of John Updike (page B4)


LONDON, March 13— Rupert Murdoch, the owner of The Times of London, appeared today to have won a power struggle with the newspaper's editor, Harold Evans.

Sources close to the editor said that Mr. Evans planned to resign within 48 hours, probably on Monday.

He had resisted since Tuesday the Australian publisher's efforts to persuade him to quit.

Mr. Murdoch, who is in New York, authorized the issuance of a statement on Friday saying that the editor had approved a financial settlement and had agreed to resign. Through friends, Mr. Evans denied this and said he planned to put out the Monday issue on Sunday night.

On Monday the editor hopes to meet with the six national directors of The Times and its sister newspaper, The Sunday Times. before submitting his resignation. The directors were installed at Government insistence when Mr. Murdoch bought the newspapers. Mr. Evans plans to urge them to take a more active role in protecting the editorial independence of The Times, his aides said. Majority Approval Required

Under the terms of Mr. Murdoch's takeover, the approval of a majority of the directors was required for him to dismiss an editor. Mr. Murdoch sought instead to persuade Mr. Evans to resign.

The editor's associates said Mr. Murdoch had tried to shift the paper sharply to the right. Among the issues, they said, were the Australian's demand for editorials supporting President Reagan's policy in Central America and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's economic goals, and his opposition to articles printed on the Op-Ed page on Poland and on industrial relations in Britain's state railroads.


THIS column has sometimes mentioned that in this country in recent decades the torrent of titles devoted to fly fishing for trout comes close to being equaled only by books dealing with the wooing of smallmouth and largemouth bass.

This tide of words on the two subjects has two basic effects: It either stimulates an angler to diligently set about learning all the new approaches, flies and lures, or it sends him in retreat, muttering that what his daddy taught him will suffice.

This is by way of making mention of a newly published book for fly-fishing neophytes: ''Fly Fishing, A Beginner's Guide,'' by David Lee (Spectrum Books, Prentice-Hall Inc., 192 pages, illustrated).

John Randolph, the managing editor of Fly Fisherman magazine, notes in his foreword that it would have been good to have had Lee's book when he was starting out in fly fishing and I must echo his observation.

Presenting a fly to a trout can be made to seem an incredibly complicated endeavor, and when that is linked with the advice to learn all the fly hatches and also, perhaps, how to create the artificials that resemble them, many would-be practitioners of this gentle art throw up their hands and say forget it.

Mr. Lee's little book carefully avoids the parts of fly fishing many would regard as tedious but nonetheless covers the basic approaches and flies. It also lists 35 basic fly patterns as well as sources of flytying and fly-fishing equipment. It is, quite simply, an ideal book for the beginning fly fisherman and it would, I'm sure, also prove helpful, from time to time, for the more accomplished angler.

Of equal interest to the veteran flytyer is Jacqueline Wakeford's full-color ''Flytying Techniques'' (Nick Lyons-Doubleday, 150 pages, illustrated). The author - she is married to David Hawker, who took all the book's first-rate photographs - is one of England's best flytyers. Her book is directed at those who wish to improve their flytying techniques, to learn how to handle some of the problems that have hitherto baffled them, and it is a splendid production in every respect.

Both freshwater and saltwater anglers would do well, by the way, to obtain a catalogue listing existing and upcoming Nick Lyons book titles, for with that publisher one may rest assured that the offerings will be excellent. The address is: Nick Lyons Books, Benn Brothers Inc., 212 Fifth Avenue, Suite 1212, New York, N.Y. 10010. Telephone: (212) 685-6613.

The world of outdoor pursuits, whether hunting, fishing, canoeing, camping, hiking, skin diving or what have you, continues to attract a steady influx of warm and charming people. None is more delightful than Gene Hill, whose 168-page ''Tears and Laughter,'' a collection of hunting-dog stories illustrated by Herb Strasser, was recently put out by Petersen Prints, a division of Petersen Publishing Company.

Hill's writing style is as pleasing as his personal style. He can make you laugh and make you cry and make you rejoice that you are alive and fortunate enough to be reading him. And knowing that most men outlive at least several of their most-loved dogs, he helps you meet that loss with gentle prose-poems to the now-departed animals that once shared his life.

It may have been because, nearly 45 years ago, my father asked me to help him on his charter fishing boat off Cape Cod and the outer islands that I developed an aversion for trolling as a way of catching fish.

As I recall, most of our customers couldn't cast with the conventional, revolving spool outfits we had in those days and spinning gear hadn't yet been developed. So all we did, when we weren't bait fishing for such bottom-running species as blackfish, sea bass, scup and flounder, was troll.

We used either rods and reels or handlines, but no matter. I found it most boring unless there happened to be a voracious school of mackerel behind the boat, kept there, in part, by my activities at a big meat grinder mounted on the stern, a meat grinder I stuffed with trash fish we had got that morning from some friends who o perated a pound net.

To this day, although I can cast steadily for several hours without a strike and without growing too bored with the endeavor, trolling sets my teeth on edge.


This responds to the article entitled ''Medicaid's Bureaucratic Blockade'' by Caren Goldberg, in the issue of March 21. In the article, Mrs. Goldberg describes problems that she has had in receiving payment for Medicaid patients. Because of her concern with the provision of services and her sensitivity to the needs of Medicaid patients as well as the fact that she feels that she and her husband can no longer accept new Medicaid patients, I feel that another perspective may be helpful.

Mrs. Goldberg mentions the facts that the procedures she is able to bill Medicaid for do not always correspond to what her husband -the ophthamologist - performed, and that reimbursement was far below their normal fee schedule. Medicaid is a limited program, dependent upon state appropriations to provide medical care to the poor. Although half funded by Federal funds and half by the state, it is the state appropriation that effectively caps the total amount able to be spent.

Because of the limited funds available, the department cannot pay for every medical service and perforce must limit what it will pay for certain select procedures. The department tries to provide as a minimum the basic medical procedures necessary to provide adequate health care. We would like to do more, but with the resources available are unable to. Likewise, the payment rate is dependent upon appropriation. We recognize that for many services we do not pay as much as the general public pays, but cannot increase the rates without additional funds or without further cutting back of the number of procedures we pay for.

Mrs. Goldberg also mentions claims being rejected with messages stating ''Bill Medicare,'' or ''Bill Blue Shield.'' By law, Medicaid is a payor of last resort. It is not an insurance program funded by contributions by participants, but rather a publicly funded assistance program. As such, we have the obligation to make sure that all insurance coverage is exhausted before taxpayers' money is used. We have new procedures for this, and are not returning claims to bill other insurance unless we have specific and direct knowledge that the person has such insurance. We feel that if the billing instructions are followed, these problems that were experienced in the past would be minimal, if any.

As Mrs. Goldberg mentions, we changed our claims payment processing system in October 1981. We have contracted with Electronic Data Systems to process our claims and to operate a Medicaid Management Information System (MMIS). The goals are to expedite claims processing - to get payments to providers for services rendered in a timely manner - and to furnish us with management information necessary to monitor the Medicaid program. We process six million claims a year representing $350 million and need to make sure that payments are not only made expeditiously but also accurately.

As with any new system of this magnitude, there are transition problems. Providers did have to become familiar with new claims forms and new coding systems. The new claim forms introduced were nationally used forms that Medicare and other insurance companies used. We were thus simplifying billing for those providers that were already using those forms. The new coding systems introduced were the coding systems developed and used by the medical professions themselves.

For instance, the new physicians' coding system which Dr. Goldberg is now using is the one developed and published by the American Medical Society; the new dental codes are those developed by the American Dental Association, and so on. Although Mrs. Goldberg states that the new codes corresponded only vaguely to the old ones, we published both the old and the new. So physicians merely need to find the procedure code that they used to bill for and next to it was the new procedure. Despite this, we have had a sufficient number of complaints to lead us to reissue the procedure codes in an improved format.

Lastly, Mrs. Goldberg states that we are doing our best to ''sabotage the availability of care for those unfortunate enough to need (our) assistance,'' and that we are ''infuriating in (our) ability to handle claims efficiently.'' It is my position that we make every effort to expedite the availability of care through rapid and efficient processing of claims. Based on experience to date under our new system we have markedly reduced the time it takes a claim to get paid and will improve this further. As with anything new there is a learning curve both on our part and on the part of the provider submitting the new claims. We have experienced a noticeable improvement in the accuracy of claims being submitted and have also improved our performance.

As a minimum we want to accurately process and pay 90 percent of all claims submitted within 30 days. We are almost there, but will not stop trying to improve when we reach the minimum. Meanwhile we urge providers to work with us to improve the system of health care delivery to the poor. As for Dr. Goldberg, I can only ask that he reconsider his decision to no longer accept new Medicaid patients. Staff in our department and that of E.D.S. are ready to work with Dr. Goldberg and any other provider to help them resolve their billing difficulties. STEPHEN H. PRESS Director, Medical Care Administration, State Department of Income Maintenance, Hartford


Every once in a while, a woman emerges in New York as the hostess whose parties everyone is talking about. Usually this woman comes from the social or fashion world, but this season's hostess-of-thehour is a successful real estate woman. Her name is Alice Mason.

She gives six major par ties a year, for which she has some rules that other ho stesses might consider unduly rigid: She always has 56 guests, 28 me n and 28 women, and never more than 18 married couples. The guests al ways sit at tables for six or eight, with 20 seated in the dining ro om, 20 in the den and 16 in the living room. They are always served by waiters.

''The key to my parties is the small tables,'' Miss Mason said the other day in her colorful eight-room apartment filled with post-Impressionist art on East 72d Street, where she gives all her parties. ''That way people do not have to talk only to the people on their right or left. They can talk to the whole table.''

Her guests, she said, are mainly ''political types, diplomats and media people, because I think they are the most interesting people there are.'' She added that she never invited people just because they were wealthy or socially prominent. ''I really prefer achievers,'' she said, ''because I'm interested in world affairs and politics, not small talk.''

Her favorite guest is Barbara Walters, whom she invites to all her parties ''because she is such a good conversationalist.'' Other favorites are Henry Anatole Grunwald, Richard and Shirley Clurman, Steve Ross, Helen Gurley Brown and David Brown, Norman and Norris Mailer, David and Hillie Mahoney, Carl Bernstein, Gloria Vanderbilt, Alan Greenspan, Jacob K. and Marion Javits, Jaime de Pinies, Spain's delegate to the United Nations, Kenneth Taylor, Consul General of Canada, and Alia El-Solh, a Lebanese intellectual. Untoward Incidents

''I always have the Arabs and I always have the Jews,'' she said. ''I have some Jewish friends who had never met an Arab until they came to one of my parties.''

Have there ever been any untoward incidents at one of her parties? ''No, none,'' she said with a smile. ''I have never had to ask anyone to leave.'' She thought for a moment, then added that the only thing that had ever disturbed her at one of her parties was the night Dotson Rader, the writer, wandered from table to table, ''which I found distressing, because it wasn't a political dinner.'' She hasn't invited him back.

Miss Mason (she has been married and divorced three times, but prefers her maiden name), is a medium-sized woman whose age, she said, is ''still under 50.'' She has reddish brown hair that she wears in a short pageboy style, and deep brown eyes, which she inherited from her Cuban mother. Her manner, although gracious, is somewhat more shy and subdued than one might expect from a successful real-estate woman.

Miss Mason is president of Alice Mason Real Estate, 667 Madison Avenue, a concern she has headed for 20 years. She said she and her 15 brokers deal mainly in cooperative apartments and town houses in Manhattan. Her personal income, she said, was ''a little above $300,000'' in 1981, and she spends a good chunk of it on her two extravagances: art and clothes by Galanos and Adolfo.

Her own apartmen t, however, is a rental tha t costs her $825 a month, and she isn't eager for her building t o go co-op. ''I'm thrilled that I don't have to spend a lot of money for the privilege of paying maintenance, which is often higher than rent,'' she said evenly.

Miss Mason is from the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia, where her father was a dentist. She graduated from Colby College in Maine with a degree in sociology and psychology, then came to New York in 1952 and soon after married her second husband, Francis Richard, a language teacher she met at Berlitz while trying to improve her French. He is the father of her only child, Dominique, 21, a Barnard senior who plans to go into the real-estate business with her mother and who is the co-hostess at all her parties. Miss Mason refused to discuss her other two husbands, saying the marriages only lasted for ''about six months.''

''I love being single; I would never marry again,'' Miss Mason said as she took a sip of Perrier water. ''I don't even date. I love waking up in the morning and having all my options. I just love being alone. Most other single women are eager to have beaus, but instead of having a beau, I entertain the people I like and admire most.''

Miss Mason's parties, which she deducts from her taxes as a business expense, are all catered by a professional named Jean-Claude. The dinners always begin with a fish course, and the entree is either chicken, duck or veal, ''because I don't like red meat.'' The parties are usually held on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday night, ''before people go away for the weekend,'' she said.

Why are Miss Mason's parties considered successful? ''Because the emphasis is on conversation,'' said Arianna Stassinopoulos, who has been a guest at four of them. ''This makes for a really warm atmosphere, rather than one where everyone is feeling grand and not communicating.'' Norris Church Mailer credits Miss Mason's personality. ''She's very calm and cool and always smiling, and she puts you at ease and makes you feel very important,'' she said.

Miss Mason said three of her six major parties a year are given near Thanksgiving, during Christmas week and on Valentine's Day. The other three are ''timely parties in someone's honor,'' she said. She also frequently gives a number of smaller political fund-raising parties during the year for Democrats, with the next one planned for early March for Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia.

She became an active fund raiser for the Democratic Party in 1976, when she raised $252,000 for Jimmy Carter's Presidential campaign, ''more than anyone else did individually,'' she said proudly. She was one of the former President's early supporters and she still has a number of autographed photographs of the two of them together scattered around her apartment.

Miss Mason, who is an avid amateur astrologer, said of President Carter: ''I always knew he could win because of his chart. I first met him in 1975 and I liked him enormously, but I still did his chart. If someone doesn't have energy in their chart, they can't win.''

She added sadly that she had also predicted his defeat in 1980, ''because Ronald Reagan had a trine to Jupiter, the planet of good luck.''

Illustrations: photo of Alice Mason in her living room


PHOENIX -- From a meticulously self-crafted "man of few words," anything within the neighborhood of declaration is welcome.

"I'm going to go home," Suns point guard Eric Bledsoe announced Wednesday night, "and sleep like a baby . . . I'll tell you that much."

This relative verbal salvo occurred shortly after a statement game during which he slapped 10 rebounds, six assists and three steals together with a career-high 33 points in a 118-113 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers. It came against the second-best team in the NBA's mighty Western Conference while matched up for much of the night with Portland all-star Damian Lillard and helped the Suns win for the 14th time in their last 18 games.

But there have been other feats of expertly timed acrobatics and demonstrations of position-defying strength.

There has been more evidence of effort-accrued skill, carefully articulated leadership, wall-to-wall energy and increased commitment to defensive detail.

Consistently applying these attributes has transformed Bledsoe into the team leader across several categories of statistics. He is, for example, at the top of the Suns' list in something known as Value Over Replacement Player.

But the number that may best define Bledsoe's second season as a Suns' employee is zero.

Zero represents the number of games Bledsoe has missed.

Measured against last season (when the Phoenix point guard was a goner for 20 of the first 44 games and 39 games overall), the value of that number seems to justify all of those previously controversial zeroes applied to the end of his new, five-year, $70 million contract.

And what will this investment provide?

Well, including last season, Bledsoe has now competed in 87 games for the Suns. With the one-and-done former Kentucky Wildcat in uniform, Phoenix has won 54 times. (Without him, the Suns are 20-19 over the same period.)

It also should be noted that the overall health of his game has remained in lock step with that of his contract-risky knees.

Although his offensive efficiency has dipped slightly from last season, improvement isn't always bracketed by analytics.

So how should we define the perceived increase in his value?

"Pretty much . . . my decision making," Bledsoe said when asked to pinpoint this season's improvement. "I've done a great job of passing the ball without turning it over so much.

"Taking less shots, getting everybody else involved where, down the stretch, I can make plays for myself."

A review of statistical splits indicates Bledsoe, indeed, has started a climb in assists and a reduction in turnovers since those early season, rhythm-seeking struggles. But checking the aggregate numbers isn't what inspires Jeff Hornacek to endorse this improvement.

"I think Eric last year . . . I would say the biggest thing was consistency," the second-year Suns coach said. "You know, some games were great, some games were horrible, there was kind of no middle ground.

"I think this year he's leveled that out where we don't have some of the games where he just has a tough night. Even his bad nights are still half-way decent nowadays, so that's a good step. The next step is going to be whenever we play, no matter who we're playing, that he comes out and plays like it's an NBA Finals game. He's done better at that, but I think he can still do a little bit better."

Well, the numbers indicate Bledsoe actually has had more stinkers (our qualifying standards are games shooting less than 40 percent from the field and/or committing at least 5 turnovers) this season than last in a similar numbers of games.

But he's provided greater comfort for his coach by embracing Hornacek's desire to accelerate the game's tempo. After a season of cruising into most half-court possessions, Bledsoe -- using his capacity to hurry through traffic with a style that conjures images of a turbo-charged delivery truck -- now can be seen gunning it down the floor at every opportunity.

He also has heeded Hornacek's recommendation to avoid assuming that being able to reach the paint requires leaping into the air, hoping to execute the best play that becomes available. Too often, Bledsoe and his Suns playmaking buddies would miss a contested shot at the rim or become trapped while elevated, looking for a bail-out pass.

The refined Bledsoe now picks his spots to finish, and often chooses to keep his dribble alive (and feet on the floor) while searching for an open, shot-ready teammate.

"I don't mind jumping up in the air if you already have a plan," Hornacek said. "But if you just jump in there and then you want to look for something, sometimes you find a guy, other times they rotate and now you're stuck. So he's done a better job of that."

In general, since that first-month attempt to blend with two other dominant point guards (Goran Dragic and Isaiah Thomas), Bledsoe has become a lot more consistent.

Another up-close eyewitness is Dragic, who -- after spending last season learning to play with and without Bledsoe.

Now that he's at peace with his place in the Suns' offensive hierarchy, Dragic seems to have an increased appreciation of his co-star's contributions.

"He's more comfortable," Dragic said. "I mean, last year was his first year with us. Now he knows what to expect, how we want to play. He's so dominating at driving that no one can stay in front of him.

"I think his mid-range shot is better. Overall, he's more calm, because last year was his last year of the deal and every player's kind of nervous about what can happen in the future. So he's found a home, we love him here. He's our guy that he can rebound, he can get assists, he can stop the guy. He does a lot for the team."

Ticking off stat-sheet boxes at a rapid, nightly tempo, Bledsoe is second on the team in points per game (16.8), first in assists (5.9), first in steals (1.6) and third in rebounds (5.3).

With the Western Conference offering an abundance of elite point guards, Bledsoe also is required to put in considerable work as a go-to defender.

"That's a key," Hornacek, referencing Bledsoe's versatility said. "A lot of guys when they don't score, it affects the rest of their game. Great players, when they don't score, then they're doing other things.

"They say, 'OK, it may not be my night . . . I may not be scoring, but I can get rebounds, I can play defense, I can get some steals . . . I can make good passes and be a leader,' and so on. I think Eric does that, probably the biggest thing is rebounding . . . he's taken some pride in being one of the best rebounding point guards in the league."

This ability to impact the game in various ways is especially crucial on a team that frequently searches out small-ball mismatches to exploit. With the 5-foot-9 Thomas joining the point-guard party, Bledsoe's value escalates commensurate with his work against disparate opponents.

As Hornacek often reminds us, sacrifices are required from all three of his high-level playmakers. With the Suns rolling through the first three weeks of January, the comfort level continues to rise.

For Dragic, this familiarity is hard to ignore.

"Really comfortable," The Dragon said when asked about playing alongside another dominant ballhandler like Bledsoe. "Even last year, I was doubting a little bit how we're going play together. But after training camp, we really jelled together. Our chemistry, it was great. Unfortunately, he got hurt.

"Now I know what he's going to do. If we play like this, it's so much easier. I know where I need to stand, and need to be. I hope he feels the same about me."

The admiration and level of comfort certainly seem reciprocal.

"No question," Bledsoe said. "We've got two great point guards besides myself coming into the game. They do a great job of always staying in attack mode, getting to the rim, drawing people and kicking it to other people.

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"It makes it easy on my part."

A year ago, this growing point-guard accord led the Suns to within a whisker of the eighth seed in the Western Conference. During his getaway interview with several reporters, Dragic said he was committed to staying in contact with Bledsoe, who was wading into what would become a hazy, crazy, rumor-rocked summer of restricted free agency.

Now it's Dragic who is expected to opt out of the final year of his current contract and see how much more than the scheduled $7.5 million he can fetch on the free-agent market.

With his running buddy eligible to work elsewhere, the Suns' man of few words promises he won't sit quietly by while The Dragon considers those options.

"I'm definitely going to do the same thing," Bledsoe said of reminding Dragic of how important he is to the team and fans in Phoenix. "Definitely going to do the same thing."

For the team's premier stat-sheet stuffer, that might qualify as his biggest assist of the year.

Follow Randy Hill on Twitter

Summary: Hard-charging Eric Bledsoe emerges as team leader while paying dividends on Suns' $70 million gamble.


06/30/2015 AT 11:30 PM EDT

"Would you rather swim in New York City's East River

walk barefoot in the subway?"

on New York City's Randall's Island this past weekend, PEOPLE asked the festival's performers this difficult (and equally disgusting) question.

readily answered that they'd prefer a dip in the sewage-filled East River – gross!

Lynch, 30, explained that the water is the lesser of two evils. "Subways scare me," he joked. "And bare feet scare me." Meanwhile, it's a cleanliness issue for 38-year-old Bryan – he's

not a fan of dirty feet. "You know when you have to take your shoes off at the airport? I

to have socks on... or I'm walking like Fred Flintstone," he tells PEOPLE.

Kip Moore, 35, agreed with his fellow country stars: "I'm not walking barefoot in the subway, I'll swim in the East River all day long – I'll take my chances out there."

Grab your Purell and watch the video above to see if any other country stars disagreed!

Summary: Turns out these guys aren't fans of bare feet


The state’s top court has ruled that Massachusetts real estate brokerages can continue to classify their workers as independent contractors, ruling against agents who claimed they were treated like traditional employees and should have received hourly pay and benefits.

The Supreme Judicial Court decision, issued Wednesday, appeared to put to rest concerns among real estate industry groups that brokerages could be on the hook for huge back payments to their agents, plus damages, and subject to higher expenses going forward.

Attorneys for the defendants said they were pleased.

“The vast majority, probably close to 90 percent or more of real estate brokers nationally, have their affiliated agents work as independent contractors,” said Robert Kutner, a partner at Casner & Edwards LLP who represented the owners of several brokerages sued by their agents. “This maintains the status quo.”

In the case, contract real estate agents who were paid only in commissions sued their bosses, claiming their work conditions qualified them as full-fledged employees who should have received wages and benefits. According to their attorney, the agents were closely supervised by managers during mandatory office shifts and made to answer phones and take out trash. As independent contractors, they also paid monthly and daily fees to the brokerages for services like having their listings re-posted each day on Craigslist.

The dispute centered on two conflicting state laws. One says workers should be treated as employees, not contractors, unless they are free to work at their own direction and specialize in a trade outside of the company’s normal business. But another state law on real estate licensing says workers can be either independent contractors or normal employees.

The SJC decision was based largely on legal precedents, affirming a lower court’s ruling that the industry was governed by the more recent real estate statute.

Neil Markson, a real estate attorney at Bernkopf Goodman LLP who has followed the case, said the ruling was largely expected. After all — and as the court’s written decision notes — a ruling favoring the agents would have called into question the longstanding and ubiquitous brokerage model and could have led to hefty penalties against companies that were complying with the real estate law.

However, Markson noted, the SJC pointedly avoided saying whether agents ought to be employees or contractors.

“They left it open as to whether or not these people could still be employees under other standards,” Markson said.

Hillary Schwab, an attorney at the firm Fair Work who represented the agents, hinted she may pursue claims for her clients under other protections in Massachusetts law.

“I am disappointed by the decision, and I don’t agree with it,” Schwab said. “But I’m pleased that the court recognized in its ruling that a wage claim could potentially still survive against a real estate company that treats its workers like employees, even if on paper it classifies them as independent contractors.”

The SJC suggested the Legislature clarify the real estate statute and make clear which workers at real estate firms are employees — a tricky issue the justices seemed reluctant to tackle.

“In light of the potential impact . . . on the real estate industry as a whole and its significant ramifications for real estate salespersons’ access to the rights and benefits of employment,” the court said, “we think it prudent to leave that issue’s resolution to another day, when it has been fully briefed and argued.”

Summary: Massachusetts’s top court has ruled that real estate agents can still be classified as independent contractors.


"The stock has had a nice rebound off the disappointing Q1, ran up into the quarter. The market was expecting a nice core organic beat, and they did not get that," Mark May, an analyst at Citi, said in a CNBC "Squawk on the Street" interview.

"The company lowered its guidance for the year. This is the second quarter in a row that the company had to lower its guidance," he said, adding that these factors combined show a deceleration in growth within LinkedIn, and that justifying its value was becoming increasingly difficult.

LinkedIn shares were down more than 9 percent in afternoon trading Friday.

Disclosure: Citigroup Global Markets has a position of $1 million or more in debt securities of LinkedIn and received compensation for products and services other than investment banking services. Evercore ISI and/or its affiliates may have, or have had, business relationships with LNKD.

Summary: Evercore's Ken Sena and Citi's Mark May explain why LinkedIn's stock is down despite its latest earnings beat.


The Federal Reserve may raise interest rates in September, but wih great difficulty with much of the world lowering rates and devaluing currency, Nuveen Asset Management's Bob Doll said Wednesday.

China's surprise decision to devalue its currency on Tuesday presented the latest challenge to the Fed's anticipated liftoff at a time when Europe and Japan are easing monetary policy. The falling Chinese yuan has dragged down other growth-linked currencies, including Australia and New Zealand.

"Everybody knew September was a more than 50 percent chance the Fed was going to go," Doll told CNBC's "Squawk Box." "You've got to wonder, is this going to make it less than 50 percent? Are they really going to listen to things outside the U.S.?"

The Fed has held its benchmark interest rate near zero since December 2008. The CME FedWatch tool—which tracks market reaction on potential changes to the fed funds target rate—showed a 45 percent likelihood of a rate hike in September, down slightly from earlier this week.

Read MoreDollar drops as China move raises doubts over Fed hike timing

The devaluation and China's recent intervention in its stock markets following a 30 percent correction underscore a massive growth problem for the country, said Doll, Nuveen's chief equity strategist. China is currently grappling with consumption challenges, mounting inventories and net capital outflows, he noted.

That slowdown will affect Asia-Pacific first, Europe next, and the United States the least, he said.

"The optimist in me says, don't forget the United States is 87 percent a domestic economy, which is generally doing better. The consumer is doing a little better. Jobs have improved," he said.

"I don't want to take anything away from the concern. It's a legitimate concern. If this develops into a currency war, we've got issues. There's not question about it," Doll said.

Summary: The Federal Reserve may raise interest rates in September, but only with "great difficulty" following China's devaluation of the yuan, Bob Doll said.


George Frey | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Employees sort Bordeaux cookies for packing at the Pepperidge Farm Inc. manufacturing facility in Richmond, Utah.

Food prices were pushed up by a surge in the cost of pork, which saw its largest rise since August 2008. Sausage, deli meat and boxed meat prices rose by the most since August 1980.

Food prices have now risen for a third straight month, in part reflecting a drought in the West.

Energy prices fell 1.2 percent, the largest decline in nearly a year. Services for final demand spiked 0.7 percent, the largest gain since January 2010, after falling 0.3 percent in February.

In the 12 months through March, producer prices advanced 1.4 percent after rising 0.9 percent in February.

Producer prices excluding volatile food and energy costs rose 0.6 percent, the biggest gain since March 2011. The so-called core PPI for final demand had declined 0.2 percent in February.

Another gauge of core producer prices - final demand less foods, energy, and trade services - rose 0.3 percent after ticking up 0.1 percent.

In the 12 months through March, core PPI for final demand rose 1.4 percent after increasing 1.1 percent in February.

Summary: U.S. producer prices recorded their largest increase in nine months in March as food and services costs spiked.


Greece called Europe's bluff on Monday as its Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, said Greece will not seek an extension of the current bailout and instead try to find a new agreement. Tsipras wants a bridge loan to keep the country afloat until June, when a permanent solution can be crafted. The current bailout program expires February 28.

What's the difference between a "bridge loan" and an extension of aid? Seems like the same thing to me, just a matter of semantics.

Austerity seems to be out the window, as Greece is not making changes in retirement age, and reversing a property tax rise, among other reforms being reversed.

This is a delicate moment, as Tsipras is calling Europe's bluff by arguing that, if Greece is forced out of the euro, other countries will follow, and the entire currency bloc will fall apart.

There may be some truth to this. An article in the Irish Times over the weekend cited Simon Coveney, the Irish minister for agriculture, who insisted any new or improved deal secured by Greece should also apply to Ireland.

Nevertheless, the Greeks need access to additional cash in the short-term, since they are on the verge of running out of money. The total debt in Greece is about 325 billion euros, or $367 billion. Greece has 11 million people. That's $33,363 for every person in the country. That is unsustainable, by anybody's standards.

At the end of the day, though, something will get done. The eurozone negotiators will allow a relaxation of some of the austerity measures. There will be some kind of extension that will bring them into the middle of the year. Call it whatever you want.

Eventually, debt maturities will be extended. But it's highly unlikely that kind of deal will be made this week.

The Greek leadership is scheduled to meet with eurozone Finance Ministers on Wednesday.

Summary: Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said Monday Greece will not seek an extension of its current bailout.


Manjunath Kiran | AFP | Getty Images

ounding member of Infosys, N.R. Narayana Murthy, speaks at a press conference at the company's headquarter in Bangalore.

"Till now we had coalition governments," he said. "But this time we have a government which has absolute majority in the parliament. He's also a man of action. He has enunciated a program called digital India where he wants to bring the power of Internet and broadband communications to the benefit of every Indian."

Read MoreInvestor goes from hedge fund manager to franchisee

Murthy said the time was ripe for U.S.-based companies to invest in India.

"Therefore, I think this is the right time for American companies to add even more value to India," he said. "Already, we have almost every high-tech company there. We have GM. We have Ford. We have lots of American companies there, but we need even more of them because they bring a lot of value to our economy."

Murthy, who founded Infosys in 1981 with $1,150 and grew it into a market capitalization of $38.6 billion, said that he expected the company to continue its upward trajectory.

Read MoreWho's not on the CNBC NEXT List?

"There is opportunity in India as well opportunity outside of India because right from Day One, we leveraged the part of globalization which is all about sourcing capital from where it is cheapest, sourcing talent from where it is best available, producing where it is most cost-effecting and selling where the markets are without being constrained by national boundaries," he said. "That's how I define globalization, and my company was based on that principle."

Murthy was named No. 13 on the CNBC First 25 List of visionary leaders who shaped the world of business and finance since 1989, the year CNBC started.

Summary: N.R. Narayana Murthy, the billionaire founder of Infosys, says he expects robust growth ahead for India.


The Chinese New Year - celebrated this year on February 19 - marks the peak period for Chinese households to buy gold, he said.

"Official 'Year of the Goat' gold coins minted for the People's Bank of China are already sold out, and reports are spreading of gold-plated fakes being sold to unwary older-aged buyers," Ash said in a research note on Monday morning.

Nonetheless, Ash stated that it's important to remember that China's huge demand for gold responds to moves in world prices and doesn't set them. While other analysts admit that the worst price fall for gold may have already happened, some aren't as optimistic on the precious metal as Acacia's Gordon.

Kit Juckes, global head of foreign exchange strategy at Societe Generale, told CNBC Monday that gold is not going back up in any "meaningful fashion anytime soon." Meanwhile, Nour Al-Hammoury, the chief market strategist at ADS Securities in Abu Dhabi said in a note that a medium term retracement might continue towards $1,200 an ounce, before the years positive trend resumes.

Summary: Gold enjoyed its third straight session of gains on Monday with industry experts predicting a little more shine for the precious metal.


Hickey also saw continued growth in FreshPet, the manufacturer of pet food for dogs and cats made with natural ingredients. The stock is up more than 23 percent since its IPO in November but Hickey said there is consumer enthusiasm for pampering your pet.

"Everyone who has pets pampers them like children these days, and as we eat better—the next logical extension is better food for pets," said Hickey. He added said this is the only pure play on healthy pet food right now, and grocery stores have confirmed the demand remains high.

Hickey's last pick was Paycom, a cloud-base payroll service, that has surged 125 percent since going public in April.

"They're an end-to-end HR provider for companies small, mid and even large companies," said Hickey. "They do payroll, human resources employee training and they help to manage that in an effective way."

Disclosure: Some Bespoke accounts own shares in Freshpet.

Summary: Bespoke's co-founder says there are 3 IPOs that investors should give another look.


"I think what Jamie was actually addressing was not the quantitative easing question. I think it was questions around liquidity in markets, and I do think that does need to be a preoccupation of regulatory authorities, and I think there's a danger that in their enthusiasm for keeping each individual institution safe that regulatory authorities will lose sight of keeping markets open and liquid, and I think that is a legitimate concern that is raised," Summers said.

Dimon pointed to the rapid 40-basis-point move in the Treasury market Oct. 15 as an illustration of the problem. He described the event as "unprecedented" and the type of "event that is supposed to happen only once in every 3 billion years or so" though he noted the event was easily absorbed by the market.

"I thought regulatory authorities made a mistake when they looked at each institution, and said, 'You'll be safer if you withdraw from the markets a bit,' and then forget that if all institutions withdraw from the markets a bit, the markets would be less liquid. The markets themselves would be less safe. That would, in the end, hurt all institutions," Summers said.

"I think there is a real issue there. Frankly, a lot of the effort that's going into macro prudential should be into making sure we have liquidity," Summers said.

In response to Dimon's comment on a 3 billion year event, he said that remark said to him that the CEO was looking at some model for judging tail risk that wasn't any good.

Read MoreDimon defends J.P. Morgan size

Dimon said the liquidity issue has not been tested when markets are under duress.

"The banking system is far safer than it has been in the past, but we need to be mindful of the consequences of the myriad new regulations and current monetary policy on the money markets and liquidity in the marketplace—particularly if we enter a highly stressed environment," Dimon wrote in his annual letter.

He also said it seems to be problem for foreign exchange. "Some currencies recently have had similar large moves. Importantly, Treasuries and major country currencies are considered the most standardized and liquid financial instruments in the world," Dimon said.

Summary: The former Treasury secretary said regulators should make a priority of addressing the problems of bond market liquidity, brought on by efforts to make institutions safer after the crisis.


CHICAGO, Aug 24 (Reuters) - Visa Inc said on Monday online shoppers using its payment service are 17 percent more likely to complete their purchases than those using PayPal.

Visa Checkout, which allows shoppers to store their payment information without having to re-enter it every time they make a purchase online, said 66 percent of its enrolled customers completed their transactions after putting items in their shopping cart compared to 49 percent of PayPal Holdings Inc's Express Checkout customers.

PayPal's online payment service offers a similar convenience by allowing customers to log into their accounts on a merchant's website. PayPal did not immediately respond to Reuters requests seeking comment.

The data was collated for Visa by retail analytics firm ComScore Inc.

Retailers and payment industry experts have often blamed the high rates of unfinished online transactions, after shoppers add items to their shopping carts, on the tiring process of re-entering payment information every time one makes a purchase.

Online payment checkout services which are available on a retailer's website make the payment process easier for customers. It also gives the service provider a slice of every transaction online; the space has recently attracted companies including Apple Inc and Amazon Inc.

"What has become more and more pronounced is as the size of the screen gets smaller, whether it's a tablet, mobile or a watch, the less likely it becomes a consumer will finish his purchase," Sam Shrauger, senior vice president of Visa's digital solutions, told Reuters.

This is because entering numbers and letters on small keyboards while holding your credit card in your hand is inconvenient and prone to mistakes.

Shrauger said 60 percent of shoppers using a computer finish their transactions compared to 45 percent of tablet users and 20 percent of mobile shoppers largely due to the hassle of entering shipping and payment data.

Recently, large U.S. retailers including Best Buy Co Inc , Barnes & Noble Inc and Taco Bell have added Visa's payment service on their websites, Shrauger said.

A year since launch, Visa Checkout has 6 million registered users and is now offered by a quarter million merchants and 330 financial institutions globally.

The service, which is available in 16 countries, will enter India next, Shrauger said.

PayPal has 169 million active customer accounts and is available in 203 markets globally.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Chicago; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

Summary: CHICAGO, Aug 24- Visa Inc said on Monday online shoppers using its payment service are 17 percent more likely to complete their purchases than those using PayPal. Visa Checkout, which allows shoppers to store their payment information without having to re-enter it every time they make a purchase online, said 66 percent of its enrolled customers completed their...