August 20, 1985

Responding to ''long lines and heavy withdrawals'' of deposits from one of Maryland's largest savings and loan associations, Gov. Harry R. Hughes yesterday orderered a 20-day moratorium on further withdrawals from the thrift institution. The action late yesterday afternoon followed a third day in which depositors demanded their money as they expressed concern that troubles in the thrift unit's real estate subsidiary would jeopardize their funds. The crisis at Community Savings and Loan Association in Bethesda, Md., is the latest in a series of sudden difficulties among commercial banks, thrift institutions and government securities dealers over the last year stemming from complex financial dealings. In Community Savings's case, the trouble emerged last week when it was disclosed that the thrift association's real estate subsidiary did not have the cash to make interest and principal payments on a portion of $1.4 billion in mortgages it had issued.

Companies Pantry Pride bid for Revlon, which took defensive steps. Revlon said it planned a ''special dividend'' to shareholders - a so-called poison pill - that could add $750 million to the cost of buying the company. It also said it would buy up to five million of its shares in the open market. Pantry Pride offered $47.50 a share, or a total of $1.81 billion, for the cosmetics company. [Page D1.] T.W.A. shareholders other than Texas Air and Carl Icahn would decide which offer for the airline to accept under a proposal going to T.W.A.'s board today, a Wall Street source said. The proposal, worked out by T.W.A. and Texas Air advisers, is intended to leave the decision to ''impartial'' shareholders, the source said. [D1.]

A takeover battle between Revlon Inc. and Pantry Pride Inc. burst into the open yesterday as Revlon announced a series of defensive steps and Pantry Pride made a formal tender offer. Revlon said it planned a ''special dividend'' to shareholders - a so-called poison pill - that could add $750 million to the cost of buying the company. It also said it would buy back up to five million of its shares in the open market. For its part, Pantry Pride formally offered stockholders $47.50 a share for any and all of Revlon's 38.2 million shares, or a total of $1.81 billion. It said its offer was conditional on getting about $750 million in additional financing.

For many middle-aged Americans, the name Motorola evokes memories of their first television set or car radio. These days, however, Motorola is making its mark in the high-tech world of semiconductors, computers and mobile phones. But Motorola's technological expansion over the last decade has not always gone smoothly. And today, the company is plagued with problems in the very businesses that it is counting on for fast growth in the future. Low-priced cellular mobile phones from Japan have produced losses for Motorola's mobile phone division, notwithstanding its 40 percent market share. Four-Phase Systems Inc., Motorola's computer unit, is also in the red and laid off 500 employees last week. And a worldwide slump has hurt Motorola's semiconductor division even though that unit is weathering the downturn far better than many of its competitors.

After decades of frustrating failure, scientists are reporting the first glimmers of success in their efforts to design new ''miracle crops'' for starving regions of Africa. In recent months farmers in Zimbabwe have achieved record harvests of maize using a high-yielding hybrid laboriously developed by agricultural researchers; a new high-yielding, drought-resistant strain of sorghum has been distributed for the first time to some farmers in the Sudan; and progress has been claimed toward developing new varieties of other staple food crops in Africa. Nobody expects a technological revolution in African agriculture overnight or believes that agricultural technology alone can solve the continent's awesome economic, political and social problems. But some optimistic scientists believe that science may ultimately be able to do for Africa what it has already helped to accomplish in much of Asia -eliminating chronic food shortages and periodic, seemingly inevitable, famines. ''The job is going to take some time,'' said Nyle C. Brady, assistant administrator for science and technology in the Agency for International Development.