An Offer Refused: The FBI has ordered...

An Offer Refused: The FBI has ordered two decorated agents to stop the presses on a book on how they busted Mafia kingpin Paul Castellano, said the Post Standard of Syracuse, N.Y. The agents--Joseph O’Brien and Andris Kurins--obtained permission from the FBI last year to publish their story, but FBI Director William Sessions withdrew the bureau’s approval after the two agents sued the FBI in March to keep possible income. Sessions said keeping the income might present a conflict of interest. He also said the book might jeopardize the pending murder prosecution of Castellano’s alleged successor, John Gotti.

* Pleas Entered: A 26-year-old man pleaded innocent Monday to charges that he broke into the Bangor, Me., home of horror writer Stephen King. Erik Keene also pleaded innocent by reason of insanity to a charge of terrorizing King’s wife, Tabitha. Keene was arrested April 20 carrying a phony bomb at the home. Defense attorney Mark Perry said Keene believes King’s bestseller “Misery” was based on Keene’s aunt, a baby killer serving a 99-year sentence.

* Benchmarks: Former Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox is retiring after his sixth term as chairman of the citizens’ lobbying group Common Cause, a post he has held for a dozen years. Cox turns 79 Friday . . . Syndicated columnist Erma Bombeck gave the 451 graduates at Meredith College in Raleigh, N.C., three pieces of advice: Marriage is still a great institution, impatience gets things done and “don’t confuse fame with success. Madonna is one; Helen Keller is the other.”

* Signs of the Times: More than 50 former “Miss Subways” gathered Monday in New York around a replica of a 1940s “A” train to mark the 50th anniversary of the popular subway poster program for which they posed. The women’s pictures were to brighten subway rides. “There were some WACs in uniforms, girls knitting argyle socks for their boyfriends,” recalled Miss Subways of 1941, Ellen Hart Strum. The campaign ended in 1976 with the rise of the women’s movement.