Weather Clear, Track Fast

U.N.'s search for a new home was drawing more attention than a horse race. As the entries went to the post last week, bookies tried to figure the odds.

It was no tout's secret that U.S. Delegate Warren Austin, as "personal representative" of President Truman, had formally offered to turn over to U.N. the Army's 2 1/2-sq.-mi. Presidio, perched spectacularly above San Francisco Bay. But Russia's Georgi Saksin promptly demanded that San Francisco be barred from the track.

"Under no circumstances," he roared, "shall the Soviet delegation go to San Francisco!" His reason: too far from Moscow. Sputtering protests, he shouted that the U.S. had rigged the race, that the whole thing was a U.S. plot to thwart the London decision of the General Assembly --which had limited the search to the eastern U.S. Comrade Saksin insisted on entering New York's Flushing Meadow, which had not even been listed on the subcommittee's program.

In answer, the U.S. announced that it actually favored an East Coast site. Entering into the spirit of things, Great Britain scratched its Westchester entry, shifted its rider to Philadelphia. Angrily the Philippines' General Carlos P. Romulo cried: "Now we find the Soviet Union threatening a new kind of veto."

As the favorites champed at the barrier, New York's Mayor Bill O'Dwyer rushed up with another dark horse: an international skyscraper city to be built in the midst of Manhattan.

By this week the smart money was riding on Eastern colors. But some bookies were beginning to bet that the judges would call off the whole show, pare down the field for a final running next year.

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