Daily News from New York, New York • 135

7 Tuesday, April 4, 1989 DAILY NEWS feI A GANDER AT GOOSE-STEPPING: Mikhail Gorbachev and Fidel with wreath to Jose Marti' statue. ai Castro watching honor guard march If If GTKgQDGL Gorby Fidel open talks By MARCIA KRAMER and TOM ROBBINS Daily News Staff Writers Mayor Koch's former patronage czar, Joe DeVin-cenzo, has told state anti-corruption probers that he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination if called to testify at a hearing today, the Daily News has learned. That disclosure came as officials of the panel, the state Commission on Government Integrity, released a list of witnesses including Koch and two top aides who will testify about the operations of the Mayor's Talent Bank, once headed by DeVincenzo. Today's hearing is expected to bring new revelations about patronage abuse in the Koch administration, including allegations that even after a new city transportation commissioner made a clean sweep of top agency personnel officials, political sponsors were still needed for applicants to get even low-level jobs. The News has learned that chief personnel officer Joseph DeMarco, brought in by Transportation Commissioner Ross Sandler in 1986, continued to make note of political backers of candidates for jobs as highway repairmen, street debris removers and ferry workers.

DeMarco, along with another former transportation department personnel chief, Robert Jean, will both be asked about patronage hir-ings at today's hearing. Also testifying will be Harold Herkommer, head of the city's Employment Retirement System, about the circumstances surrounding De-Vincenzo's pension. Herkommer has said that his office alerted city investigators that DeVincenzo had filed for his pension in January in the midst of a City Hall probe into DeVincenzo's activities. But the Department of Investigation maintains it never got the information. After DeVincenzo and an aide testified publicly before the panel in January, commissioner member and former U.S.

Secretary of State Cyrus Vance labeled their statements "less than credible." Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau is investigating DeVincenzo for perjury and other abuses of his City Hall office. DeVincenzo's attorney, Andrew Lawler, was said by his office to be out of town and unavailable for comment. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS HAVANA Presidents Mikhail Gorbachev and Fidel Castro went behind closed doors yesterday for talks expected to air ideological differences and highlight problems of Third World nations. Soviet spokesman Gennadi Gerasimov said Gorbachev's initial discussions with Castro and the Cuban Communist Party's Central Committee had been held in a "friendly atmosphere." Asked whether Gorbachev would offer to forgive Cu- nn UULl Police seek 2 By JARED McCALLISTER and DAVID J. KRAJICEK Daily News Staff Writers A nationwide alarm was issued yesterday for a missing 6-week-old boy whose mother was found strangled and bludgeoned last week in the Bronx.

Police said the suspects in both the slaying and abduction are two women driving a new Pontiac who may have hatched a bizarre murder plot to get the child. Bushwick encounter The infant's father yesterday appealed for the boy's return. "They've already taken one from me," said Timothy Bryant. "If they have the baby, they should call the detectives." The victim, Monique Rivera, 22, unexpectedly met the women last Tuesday near her home in Bushwick, Brooklyn. She told her live-in compan in his 30-year rule, has criticized Gorbachev's reforms for borrowing too much from the capitalist world.

Lay a wreath After the laying of a wreath at the monument to Jose Marti, father of Cuban independence, Castro escorted his guest to the Palace of the Revolution to begin discussions, scheduled to continue on and off new Pontiac fant, but the other children stayed behind with Bryant's sister, Patricia. Rivera and the infant never returned home. Timothy Bryant, who works as a shipping clerk, reported Rivera missing on Thursday, and placed an advertisement with her photograph in Sunday's Daily News. The ad caught the eye of Detective Michael Serrano of the 45th Precinct detective squad in the Bronx. The face matched that of a woman whose fully clothed body was found bludgeoned and strangled Thursday on the shore of Eastchester Bay.

The victim was Monique Rivera. Detectives believe the shopping trip was a ruse to abduct the child, who was last seen wearing a gray and red sweatsuit, white tights and a white and beige sweater. Police and the FBI are through the evening. Gorbachev's wife, Raisa, visited a day-care center and a Cuban-Soviet friendship center and planned to tour the home of Ernest Hemingway, who lived for many years on an estate outside Havana that is now a museum. Mrs.

Gorbachev and her husband have mentioned reading Hemingway, whose works are popular in the Soviet Union. Monique Rivera looking for a 1988 or 1989 burgundy Pontiac Grand Am, possibly with Maryland license plates. Police have set up a special hotline 718-287-0311 for information. Rivera's other son, the 6-year-old, said he had seen a gun in the Pontiac. 1 ba's huge debt, Gerasimov said that subject had not been discussed specifically although they had talked about the "enormous debt plundering the economies" of Latin American countries and the drug trade.

Gerasimov said they had exchanged views on the Soviet elections, seen as a victory for reformers. Castro, who has not allowed competitive elections women in a ion, Bryant, that one of the women was a school acquaintance. Detectives at the Knickerbocker Ave. stationhouse have pieced together a perplexing series of events that unfolded after Rivera met the pair. Rivera lived on Madison St.

with Bryant, 24, and their three children, Tim Thomas, 4, and Andre, 6 weeks. On Tuesday, the women treated Rivera and the children to lunch at McDonald's, then took them shopping. At noon Wednesday, while Rivera's children nursed stomach aches, the women phoned to entice her with the promise of a shopping trip to a mall. Rivera went to a pharmacy for stomach medication, then returned home and was met by the women. Witnesses said one of the women badgered Rivera into bringing the in.