December 13, 1983

Until 1981, when his company's earnings headed downward for the first time, Michel C. Bergerac, chairman of Revlon Inc., was eager to talk about the cosmetics and health care giant he was building. Then Revlon's glamour faded. The company's market share in cosmetics began to slide as more aggressive companies moved ahead in such growing areas as skin care treatment. A rapid diversification accompanied by the acquisition of several companies that make health care products, analysts said, distracted Revlon from its cosmetics operation. Add to that the recession. Suddenly Revlon, like the rest of the industry, discovered that regardless of the advertising budget, the days of rapid growth in cosmetics were over. And Mr. Bergerac's romance with Wall Street ended.

President Reagan honored the nation's military heroes yesterday and declared that while ''tyrants are tempted'' by weakness, his military rebuilding program now has the armed forces ''standing tall.'' ''We have tried turning our swords into plowshares, hoping others would follow,'' the President said, referring to the biblical dictum for peace. ''Well, our days of weakness are over. Our military forces are back on their feet and standing tall.''

Random House announced yesterday that it was recalling 58,000 copies of a book about the late Barbara Hutton, the heiress to $26 million of the Woolworth fortune, because of errors about one of the physicians who treated her. Random House said it would destroy the copies after the recall, which industry experts said was one of the largest of its kind in publishing history. The book, ''Poor Little Rich Girl: The Life and Legend of Barbara Hutton'' by C. David Heymann, was excerpted in Vanity Fair magazine, was an alternate selection of the Book-of- the-Month Club and seemed headed for the best-seller lists. The official publication date was to be Jan. 2, but the book has been available in bookstores since November.

AFEDERALLY appointed panel has found ''signs of trouble, signs of erosion, in the nation's graduate capacity - signs that in some areas point to serious distress.'' ''Unless our graduate schools receive the support they require, they will not by the year 2000 be able to respond effectively to the nation's imperatives and expectations,'' the National Commission on Student Financial Assistance asserted yesterday in Washington in a report to President Reagan. The commission was established by Congress under the Education Amendments of 1980, with four members appointed by the President and four each by the House and the Senate. Its report is titled ''Signs of Trouble and Erosion: A Report on Graduate Education in America.''

TENS of thousands of domesticated dogs are reverting to the wild in Italy and threatening to drive the small remnant of wolves there into extinction. In sparsely populated rural areas of central and southern Italy, including the rugged Apennine mountains, the dogs are apparently gaining ground in a new Darwinian struggle for survival against their more powerful but less numerous competitors. By one informed estimate, some 80,000 feral dogs are now competing for territory, food and genetic supremacy against perhaps 250 surviving wolves. Although wolves often attack, kill and eat dogs when their numbers are roughly equal or favor the wolf, the vastly greater number of dogs that exist at present gives them the advantage. The innocent-looking dogs are also far better adapted to survival in close proximity to humans than the more feared and hated wolves, which are often poisoned or shot on sight.