American Notes PHILADELPHIA

After Philadelphia's former law-and-order Mayor Frank Rizzo was beaten in a 1983 Democratic primary by black City Managing Director Wilson Goode, he refused to stay quietly in retirement. This year Rizzo bolted to the Republican Party and ran for his old job, blasting Goode for the inept fire bombing of a house of black radicals that killed eleven people and destroyed 61 homes. His appeal to his core constituency of white ethnic voters almost worked. Rizzo last week carried the party's heavily Democratic ethnic wards, but some 98% of blacks stuck with Goode, despite his record, and 20% of the white voters joined them. The result was a squeaky 51%-to-49% re-election for the city's first black mayor.