Oddly, 'NTS' has been graced by 7 appearances in NYT, all clued in this way. I agree that it's an awful clue. To me, replacing "IFTHEN", "AFFRONT" and "STOOGES" with "AFTERS", "ALFREDO", and "STOICAL", respectively, makes everthing work out rather nicely, also avoiding the undesirable directional clue at 114 across.