THE WEEK

By MELISSA AUGUST, LINA LOFARO, ALICE PARK, JEFFERY C. RUBIN, ALAIN L. SANDERS AND SIDNEY URQUHART

NATION

SENDING IN THE TROOPS

President Clinton went on national television to make his case for sending 20,000 U.S. troops to join the nato peacekeeping mission in Bosnia. The President said U.S. prestige in brokering the latest peace agreement was at stake and that a stable Bosnia was in America's national interest. Polls showed that a majority of the public was still waiting to be convinced. But on Capitol Hill, hostile skepticism melted into resignation as legislators acknowledged that the President had the constitutional authority to send the troops without their consent. Congress prepared to vote on a limited resolution of support, thereby allowing members to back the troops without forgoing a choice opportunity to criticize the President.

GIMME MY BUDGET

White House and congressional negotiators trying to work out a compromise for a seven-year balanced budget plan spent the week angrily talking past one another. Nor was there much progress made toward enacting measures needed to fund the government past the latest deadline of Dec. 15. There was, however, one exception: the President agreed to a $243 billion defense appropriations bill ($7 billion more than he wanted) because, he said, it would enable him to pay for U.S. troops in Bosnia.

CONGRESSIONAL CLEANUP

Heeding the public clamor for cleaner government, the House gave final approval to a sweeping reform bill on lobbying and sent it to the President, who has said he will sign it. The legislation imposes strict registration rules on lobbyists, requiring them to disclose their clients, the issues they have worked on and the money they have been paid.

ZOOM!

Despite his fears that the measure will increase highway death tolls, President Clinton signed into law a bill repealing the federal 55 m.p.h. and 65 m.p.h. speed limits. The legislation, which will allow states to set higher roadway speeds, also provides $6 billion in needed highway funds.

HOW FAR DID GOPAC GO?

House Speaker Newt Gingrich found himself in the middle of a new ethics controversy after the Federal Election Commission released internal papers from GOPAC, the political-action committee Gingrich once headed. The FEC charged that the documents--filed in a lawsuit against GOPAC--indicate the group improperly subsidized Gingrich's 1990 campaign, in which he narrowly won re-election. One document, a transcript of a gopac meeting, refers to ''a quarter of a million dollars in 'Newt support.'" The Speaker denounced the accusations as "totally phony."

WHITEWATER RIPPLES

At the Senate Whitewater hearings, Republicans accused White House aides of improperly obtaining information in 1993 from federal investigators probing the finances of David Hale, a former Arkansas judge and investment executive. Hale, who has said Bill Clinton pressured him into making a questionable loan when Clinton was Governor, has since pleaded guilty to fraud charges, and is cooperating with the Whitewater independent counsel.

MORE EXITS, LEFT AND RIGHT

Oregon Republican Mark Hatfield, a moderate pillar of the Senate for 30 years, announced he will retire next year, the 11th Senator to do so. Reports circulated at week's end that Wyoming Republican Alan Simpson, one of the Senate's crustier members, may soon become the 12th. In the House, Colorado Democrat Pat Schroeder, the most senior woman in the chamber and one of its most influential feminists, said she would also step down, as did Kansas Republican Jan Meyers, the only woman to chair a full House committee. For his part, Speaker Newt Gingrich announced that he would not seek the Oval Office in 1996.

JACKSON: A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE?

Could be. Jesse Jackson Jr., the son of the civil rights activist, took a big step toward capturing a House seat. Jackson won the key Democratic primary in the heavily Democratic Chicago district formerly represented by Mel Reynolds, who was convicted on sexual-misconduct charges earlier this year. Jackson will face off against a Republican opponent on Dec. 12.

THERE GOES THE JUDGE

Acceding to defense requests, a federal appeals court ordered the removal of U.S. District Judge Wayne Alley from the Oklahoma City bombing case to avoid any appearance of partiality. The defense had objected to Alley because the explosion at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building had slightly injured one of his staff members and damaged Alley's courtroom and chambers, located in a nearby building.

SMOKING GUN

It was not a happy week for the heads of the nation's tobacco companies. Former Brown & Williamson research chief Jeffrey Wigand, the industry's highest-level whistle-blower to date, began giving depositions to lawyers for the state of Mississippi, which is suing the industry to recoup the public-health costs it attributes to smoking. Though Brown & Williamson obtained a gag order on Wigand from the courts in Kentucky, where the firm is based, a Mississippi judge refused to honor the ruling.

FROM LIFE TO ART TO LIFE

"Appalled and dismayed" was Columbia Pictures' re-action to the torching of a New York City subway token booth by assailants whose attack closely resembled scenes from the studio's latest release, Money Train. The clerk working inside the booth suffered severe burns. G.O.P. presidential contender Bob Dole, who has been campaigning against Hollywood's "pornography of violence," took to the Senate floor to urge a boycott of the film. In the debate about whether the movie inspired the crime, it was almost forgotten that the film scenes were themselves inspired by a series of real-life attacks.

WORLD

CLINTON'S DIPLOMATIC JAUNT

President Clinton began a five-day trip to England, Northern Ireland, the Irish Republic, Germany (for a morale-building visit with American troops heading for Bosnia) and Spain (for a European Union meeting in Madrid). In London, Clinton assured both houses of Parliament that the U.S. would take the lead in carrying out the Bosnian peace plan. In Dublin, the President told the Irish parliament that ending the rivalry with Northern Ireland is part of "the tide of history." And in Germany he gave cheering U.S. soldiers permission to "respond immediately and with decisive force" if they were threatened with attack.

NORTHERN IRELAND INITIATIVE

The British and Irish governments issued a communique on Northern Ireland that could bring Sinn Fein, the political arm of the Irish Republican Army, to the negotiating table. But the i.r.a. has yet to relinquish some of its arms--an issue the British regard as crucial to a final peace accord. The signing came just before the son of Virginia Cassidy Blythe Clinton Kelley arrived in Northern Ireland--the first U.S. President ever to visit there. Greeted by enthusiastic crowds, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, Clinton clearly rejoiced in his role as designated peacemaker. One Irish-American politician accompanying the President, Mayor Richard Riordan of Los Angeles, was quite overcome: "It's almost like God coming down and saying Northern Ireland has a great future."

U.S. AND NATO IN, U.N. OUT

A 10-man U.S. reconnaissance team went to Bosnia to scout out accommodations for the 20,000 American troops that are to follow over the next few weeks. Meanwhile the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to shut down its ill-starred 31/2-year peacekeeping missions in Croatia and Bosnia by Jan. 31. Ninety percent of the 22,000 U.N. troops now stationed in the former Yugoslavia will simply take off their Blue Helmets and switch over to the NATO force.

FRICTION WITH HAITI

After equivocating about whether to stay on or step down as President of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide confirmed his intention to leave office at the end of his five-year term in February 1996. Presidential elections are set for Dec. 17. Relations with the U.S. turned increasingly sour as some 1,100 Haitian boat people were repatriated by the Coast Guard last week, more than the total number returned to Haiti in the past 10 months. Aristide, who has never agreed to forced repatriation, argues that the resurgence of boat people is the result of economic hardship, which U.S. aid would alleviate. He also accused the U.S. of seizing and holding thousands of documents that belong to the Haitian military forces, saying the records are needed to prosecute human-rights violators. The Pentagon insists the papers belonged to the deposed military regime, not the Aristide government, and became U.S. property when American soldiers seized them last year.

BUSINESS

DRUG COMPANY PLEADS GUILTY

One of the largest U.S. drug companies, Warner-Lambert, pleaded guilty to lying to the Food and Drug Administration about its product-testing methods and agreed to pay a $10 million fine. According to the fda, the company covered up the fact that certain drugs were not chemically stable and lost their potency over time, which in turn meant that patients got lower dosages than they should have.

TOY STORY BONANZA

Steven Jobs, the co-founder and later ousted chairman of Apple Computer, stands to rake in a windfall of more than $1 billion as his latest venture, Pixar Animation Studios, issues a public offering of stock. Pixar, a tiny computer company based in Richmond, California, created the current blockbuster movie Toy Story. Jobs bought the company for $10 million in 1986.

CALLING BACK THE CADDIES

General Motors will recall nearly 500,000 Cadillacs and pay $45 million in fines and expenses to settle a federal pollution complaint brought under the Clean Air Act. The problem: climate-control devices installed by GM caused Cadillac's 1991 Seville and DeVille models to stall and emit unacceptable amounts of carbon monoxide. According to government lawyers, General Motors was aware that the design changes would cause pollution problems. The company has denied it.

--By Melissa August, Lina Lofaro, Alice Park, Jeffery C. Rubin, Alain L. Sanders and Sidney Urquhart