World Notes NICARAGUA

As President Daniel Ortega and Miguel Cardinal Obando y Bravo sat down for a 90-minute chat last week, the two men, frequent antagonists in the past, were uncommonly genial. So when Ortega requested that Obando go to Washington and ask the Bush Administration for direct talks between the two countries, the Cardinal promised to think it over.

During the next few days, however, the Sandinistas gave less cordial signals. First, they confiscated the coffee farms of three opposition members. Then, in Caracas, Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann charged that unnamed U.S. officials were involved "down to the marrow of their bones" in drug trafficking.

Washington's reaction: Any talks with Ortega at this time would be premature.