American Notes

HEALTH No News on a Prominent Nose

As Ronald Reagan greeted visitors last week, reporters glimpsed a scab on the right side of his nose. White House Spokesman Larry Speakes later explained that a dermatologist had removed a small "gathering" of skin from the President's nose two days earlier. To avoid raising new concerns about cancer, Speakes refused to use the term lump or growth, talking instead of a skin irritation that had been aggravated after the President's operation.

The matter might have rested there but did not, in part because the White House refused to answer other questions on the subject. Who was the dermatologist? Why had there been no advance announcement of the operation, however minor? Why was no test for cancer performed on the removed skin? Apparently, after airing details of his colon-cancer operation, Reagan wished to downplay additional medical discussion. But by sealing their lips, White House aides aroused more curiosity than they desired and probably more than the minor procedure deserved. FOREIGN POLICY Bludgeoned with an Umbrella

The conference was called, dramatically enough, "The State Department Held Hostage." Chaired by Richard Viguerie, publisher of the Conservative Digest, the conference was a grand opportunity for the disaffected right to bash, of all people, Secretary of State George Shultz. Wearing stickers emblazoned with an umbrella (to commemorate British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who sought to appease Adolf Hitler), some 150 delegates accused Shultz of being too soft on terrorists, too warm to the Soviets and too cool toward freedom fighters in Angola, Afghanistan and Mozambique.

The odd thing about such criticism, say Administration officials, is that Shultz is a leading advocate of using force against terrorists. One explanation for the right's indignation is Shultz's refusal to fill key State slots with true believers. Another comes from New York Times Columnist William Safire, who wrote last week in defense of Shultz, "America's right wing sorely misses Nelson Rockefeller . . . Politics without a villain is like a lens without a focal point." The man to hold responsible for Reagan's foreign policy, he noted, is Reagan. TERRORISM A Score Still Unsettled

Ever since 13 relaxed patrons, including four U.S. Marine embassy guards, were machine-gunned to death by guerrillas in San Salvador's Zona Rosa cafe last June, American officials have been talking about retribution. A reward of $100,000 was even offered by the State Department for the perpetrators. When pressed last week about why nothing more had been done, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger made what seemed a surprising revelation. "The Salvadoran government with our assistance," he claimed, "has taken care of--in one way or another--a number of people who participated in that killing." About two weeks after the cafe attack, Pentagon sources said, the Salvadoran army staged an offensive against the Central American Revolutionary Workers' Party, the group that claimed responsibility. The Pentagon said 21 guerrillas were killed and two leaders captured.

Reports from El Salvador, however, soon cast doubt on whether the retaliation hit those directly responsible for the June attack. Said one U.S. military observer: "As far as saying 'This guy was at the Zona Rosa,' if that is the case I don't know it." A Salvadoran military spokesman said, more conclusively, that the rebels captured and killed "were not specifically the ones responsible." With that, Weinberger's office backpedaled a bit. "He was not intending to say that we had identified the actual triggermen," a spokesman explained. At week's end the State Department said the reward offer for those who actually carried out the killings was still in effect. SPACE Challenger's Greatest Challenge

"It sure scared us," said Flight Director Cleon Lacefield. Less than six minutes after launch last week, while the space shuttle Challenger's speed remained well below the velocity of 17,500 m.p.h. that it must achieve to go into orbit, onboard computers shut down one of its three main engines. Reason: sensors were signaling overheating in the fuel pump. Two and a half minutes later, another engine seemed to overheat. "If the right engine had failed ... we would have been in the water," Lacefield said afterward, meaning that Challenger, with its crew of seven, would have fallen in a controlled glide. By firing its remaining two engines for an additional 86 sec., Challenger finally reached a safe orbit 197 miles above the earth, 45 miles below that planned.

Safely in space, the crew performed a round-the-clock schedule of experiments, including observation of flares on the sun's surface and study of the behavior of liquid helium at zero gravity. Crowed Mission Scientist Eugene Urban: "We have been able to assure ourselves that the science return . . . will be very high." BOSTON Black Chief for an Ailing System

Boston's public schools have been a national symbol of racial conflict for more than a decade. But last week black, Hispanic and white members of the city's school committee united to elect Boston's first black school superintendent, Laval Wilson, 49, a no-nonsense administrator who has led the public schools in Rochester since 1980. "I'm thrilled," said School Committee President John Nucci, a resident of the blue-collar East Boston neighborhood, adding, "We're off to an optimistic start."

Wilson will take over just as Judge Arthur Garrity Jr. prepares to relinquish the tight federal-court control of Boston's schools that he imposed eleven years ago to effect his sweeping desegregation plan. In Rochester, Wilson boosted student test scores and reduced absenteeism, while trimming $8 million from the budget. When fistfights broke out at school basketball games, he won plaudits by banning spectators for three weeks. In his application letter for the Boston job, Wilson called himself "the most qualified urban educator in the U.S." Now he will have a chance to prove it. High school illiteracy now runs 30% in Boston, and the daily absentee rate is an astonishing 48%.