August 29, 1984

Israeli Air Force jets attacked a Palestinian guerrilla base today in the Bekaa region in eastern Lebanon and reportedly inflicted heavy casualties. Israel said the base had been used to prepare for raids against Israeli troops. The Voice of Lebanon radio station of the Christian Phalangist Party said as many as 100 people might have been killed when two Israeli bombers destroyed several buildings at the base in Mejdel Anjar, about three miles from the Lebanese-Syrian border. 25 Reported Dead According to the radio, which quoted a correspondent on the scene, 25 bodies had been recovered and 75 others were believed to be still buried in the rubble of a three-story building used as a security and intelligence office.

A Federal appeals court in New York has ordered the Social Security Administration to restore benefits denied to 50,000 mentally ill people in the state under what it called a ''clandestine policy'' of determining eligibility. In the unanimous decision Monday evening, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit criticized the Reagan Administration, which has resisted previous court orders to re-evaluate the denials of disability benefits. The appeals court upheld a February 1983 decision by Judge Jack B. Weinstein of Federal District Court in Brooklyn. Judge Weinstein, in his ruling, had accused the the Social Security Administration of engaging in a ''covert policy'' from 1978 to early 1983 to deny applicants for disability benefits the right to be assessed properly.

RESTAURANTGOERS will never agree on where to find the best pesto, but when it comes to wine prices they appear to be of one mind: wine prices in restaurants are too high. A few comments on this subject appeared here last week and the calls and letters continue to arrive. ''The wine is starting to cost more than the food,'' one reader wrote, ''and that's ridiculous.'' ''I see fewer people drinking wine,'' said another. ''It's sad, but it's just what some of these guys deserve.''

When visitors entered Charles Knapp's spacious office atop a Los Angeles skyscraper, their attention was invariably drawn to a ship's telegraph, the device sea captains use to signal the engine room for power. As helmsman of the Financial Corporation of America, Mr. Knapp had always been proud that he had his telegraph set at flank speed, the fastest a ship can go. Yesterday, recognizing that Financial had gone too far, too fast into uncharted waters, Charles William Knapp announced his resignation as chairman and chief executive officer of the company, parent of the American Savings and Loan Association. He had built that unit into the nation's largest and, for a time, most profitable thrift institution, employing a brash entrepreneurial style that thumbed its nose at the industry's traditional caution and took risky bets on the direction of interest rates. A Tempestuous Summer ''There was a basic difference in philosophy between Financial Corporation, as personified by Charlie, and the rest of the industry,'' recalls Anthony M. Frank, chairman and chief executive of the First Nationwide Financial Corporation, the parent of another major California savings and loan institution. A spokesman for Financial Corporation declined requests for interviews with Mr. Knapp.

SINCE it was issued in paperback in 1946, Dr. Benjamin Spock's ''Baby and Child Care'' has made publishing history. The book went through 167 printings in its first 10 years, but since then, a spokesman for Pocket Books said recently, it has had ''so many printings we can't keep count.'' Thirty million copies are in print. And in his recent book ''Two-Bit Culture: The Paperbacking of America,'' Kenneth C. Davis says the Spock book ''has become the second-best-selling book in American history, trailing only the Bible.'' Dr. Spock's book, which is updated periodically, continues to sell more than 250,000 copies a year. Also still selling are the several books by Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, the Harvard University pediatrician who has been called ''the new Dr. Spock.'' Among his books still in print are ''Infants and Mothers,'' first published in 1969 and since updated; ''On Becoming a Family,'' and ''Toddlers and Parents.'' But these days books by Dr. Spock and Dr. Brazelton are increasingly sharing space on the night table with other books about child care, pregnancy, birth and a wide range of related topics.