Grapevine

By PAUL GRAY/

DEPARTING IS SUCH SWEET SORROW. Members of Violeta Chamorro's new government in Nicaragua keep finding little surprises bequeathed to them by the defeated Sandinistas. Some offices have been stripped of everything but the nails on which pictures once hung. The new Minister of Communications searched his premises in vain for accounting ledgers; he did discover a contract for the purchase of 22 new Toyotas, for $392,000, all apparently driven off by army members. The incoming mayor of Managua learned that $52,192.53 was distributed as bonuses to six employees, some of whom quit promptly when he took office. The pilfering has been so blatant that ex-President Daniel Ortega does not even try to deny it: "What is being called plundering was nothing more than a decision to benefit the people."

With reporting by DAVID ELLIS