problem building dvi and pdf documentation on Darwin 10.2.6

I just installed R-1.7.0 on Darwin 6.6 (a.k.a. MacOS 10.2.6). 
'make' and 'make check' run without any problems. 'make info' 
builds with no complaints, but 'make dvi' and 'make pdf' fail. 
I get refman.dvi and refman.pdf OK (with some warnings from 
pdftex that some names are referenced that do not exist), but 
R-FAQ.{dvi,pdf} fails as shown below. Attempts to build the other 
R-{intro,admin,...}.{dvi,pdf} (manually via 'make xyzzy') fail 
similarly.

My last serious experience with TeX was some years ago, so I'm not 
sure if this a glitch in the input files, a borken TeX installation 
(mine is teTeX 2.0.2 built via fink), or some (other) Darwin-related 
problem.

If someone with a better understanding of these things can point 
me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it.

TEXINPUTS=".:$TEXINPUTS" ../../bin/texi2dvi --texinfo="@set
UseExternalXrefs" R-FAQ.texi
This is TeX, Version 3.14159 (Web2C 7.4.5)
(/tmp/t2d10777/xtr/R-FAQ.texi (./texinfo.tex
Loading texinfo [version 2002-03-26.08]: Basics, pdf, fonts, page headings,
tables, conditionals, indexing, sectioning, toc, environments, defuns,
macros,
cross references, (/sw/share/texmf/tex/generic/misc/epsf.tex) localization,
and turning on texinfo input format.)
! Missing @endcsname inserted.
<to be read again> 
                   @let 
@parsearg #1->@let 
                   @next = #1 at begingroup @obeylines @futurelet @temp
@parsea...
<argument> UseExternalXrefs at settitle 
                                     R
@setzzz ...tzzz ->@expandafter @gdef @csname SET#1
                                                  @endcsname {#2}
@setyyy ... @empty @else @setzzz {#1}#2 at endsetzzz 
                                                  @fi @endgroup 
l.5 @set UseExternalXrefs at settitle R FAQ
                                        
? [I type <return> here]

(/sw/share/texmf/tex/texinfo/txi-en.tex) [1] [-1] Chapter 1 (./R-FAQ.tmp)
Cross reference values unknown; you must run TeX again. Chapter 2 [1] [2]
[3] (./R-FAQ.tmp) (./R-FAQ.tmp) [4] [5] (./R-FAQ.tmp) (./R-FAQ.tmp)
(./R-FAQ.tmp) (./R-FAQ.tmp) [6] (./R-FAQ.tmp) (./R-FAQ.tmp) (./R-FAQ.tmp)
(./R-FAQ.tmp) (./R-FAQ.tmp) [7] (./R-FAQ.tmp) [8] [9] Chapter 3 [10]
(./R-FAQ.tmp) (./R-FAQ.tmp) (./R-FAQ.tmp) (./R-FAQ.tmp) (./R-FAQ.tmp) [11]
(./R-FAQ.tmp) [12] [13] [14] [15] (./R-FAQ.tmp) [16] (./R-FAQ.tmp)
(./R-FAQ.tmp
) (./R-FAQ.tmp) Chapter 4 [17] (./R-FAQ.tmp) Chapter 5 [18] [19]
(./R-FAQ.tmp)
[20] (./R-FAQ.tmp) (./R-FAQ.tmp) [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27]
(./R-FAQ.tmp) [28] (./R-FAQ.tmp) [29] (./R-FAQ.tmp) [30] (./R-FAQ.tmp)
(./R-FAQ.tmp) (./R-FAQ.tmp) [31] (./R-FAQ.tmp) (./R-FAQ.tmp) (./R-FAQ.tmp)
(./R-FAQ.tmp) (./R-FAQ.tmp) (./R-FAQ.tmp) (./R-FAQ.tmp) [32] [33] [34] [35]

WARNING: for users of Unix TeX 3.0!
This manual trips a bug in TeX version 3.0 (tex hangs).
If you are running another version of TeX, relax.
If you are running Unix TeX 3.0, kill this TeX process.
 Then upgrade your TeX installation if you can.
 (See ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/TeX.README.)
If you are stuck with version 3.0, run the
 script ``tex3patch'' from the Texinfo distribution
 to use a workaround.

Chapter 6 [36] (./R-FAQ.tmp) (./R-FAQ.tmp) (./R-FAQ.tmp) [37] Chapter 7
[38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] (./R-FAQ.tmp) Chapter 8 [46]
Chapter 9
[47] [48] Chapter 10 [49] [50] )
Output written on R-FAQ.dvi (52 pages, 156736 bytes).
Transcript written on R-FAQ.log.
../../bin/texi2dvi: tex exited with bad status, quitting.
../../bin/texi2dvi: see R-FAQ.log for errors.