June 18, 1986

An article in Metropolitan Report on Thursday about Victor E. Botnick, who resigned as a senior aide to Mayor Koch, misidentified the high school from which he graduated. Mr. Botnick attended Yeshiva University High School in Upper Manhattan for three years, but transferred to the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School, then on the Lower East Side, and graduated in 1972.

After 53 years of offering an unusually tranquil skyscraping vantage - a kind of front porch 850 feet in the air - the observation roof atop the RCA Building has been closed for good. On a clear day, you could see Connecticut from the handsome decks on the 69th and 70th floors. Manhattan sparkled and the blue-hued globe seemed to drop away in all directions from that windy limestone peak. But now, no one is there. When the business day ended May 23, the observatory at 30 Rockefeller Plaza simply went out of business, without a trace of fanfare or publicity.

Fields of purple, red and white poppy flowers, contrasting brilliantly with the dull gray of the surrounding deserts, stretched toward the horizon. In one field, where the petals had fallen to the ground, a line of farmers scraped a brownish-black gum from pale green pods about the size of golf balls. They were harvesting opium that, according to dozens of Afghan rebel commanders and fighters, helps finance their war against troops of the Soviet and Afghan armies. Rebels Say Harvest Is Crucial The rebels, encountered here and elsewhere on a 1,000-mile journey through three southern Afghan provinces, admitted they are involved in poppy cultivation. The war, the rebels said, created its own economic and moral imperatives; they said the opium harvest was crucial to their survival and their continued efforts to oust the Communists.

Eleven blacks were killed across the country Monday during the one-day strike commemorating the uprising in Johannesburg's black satellite city of Soweto 10 years ago, the Government said today. The Government also imposed a ban on live television transmissions by foreign journalists, adding to the already tight restrictions on the operations of broadcasting crews and newspaper reporters. The announced death toll was the highest for a single day since the country's white leaders imposed a nationwide state of emergency last Thursday, suspending many civil rights and sharply curtailing the rights of news organizations to report events. Millions Return to Work Nonetheless, the authorities described events Monday as demonstrating the Government's success in preventing even more bloodshed on the anniversary of the Soweto uprising, which began in 1976 with protests against the educational system for blacks and lasted for nearly a year.

A LOUNGE near the elevators serves as the commencement hall. The speeches are warm, encouraging and brief. The audience includes a handful of faculty members and well-wishers. The luncheon is potluck: a variety of ethnic specialties made by the graduates. The occasion marks the graduation of a dozen ''displaced homemakers'' who have completed an eight-week course, the Re-Entry Employment Program at the Y.W.C.A. at Lexington Avenue and 53d Street. The purpose of the program is to train these women for basic office work, finding them jobs and encouraging them to go out into the work world. The oldest in the class are in their early 60's, the youngest in their 30's. Their ethnic and economic backgrounds, races and accents are about as diverse as one can imagine. What they have in common is that each has lost a husband, an income or both. ''I feel like a little girl,'' said a woman whose schooling was interrupted 40 years ago when she fled wartime Poland. ''I've never graduated from anything.'' The woman, who is in her 50's, asked that her name not be used.

The New York City Rent Guidelines Board, in a meeting that was unusually brief and calm, yesterday approved basic rent increases of up to 9 percent for hundreds of thousands of rent-stabilized apartments. The increases, 6 percent for one-year leases and 9 percent for two-year leases, affect 556,000 rent-stabilized apartments whose leases expire in the 12 months starting Oct. 1. The board also voted to retain the existing 7.5 percent vacancy allowance -an added increase applied when a stabilized apartment changes hands -and approved a $15 monthly charge for apartments leased for less than $350 a month. The measures were approved by a 6-to-2 vote, with the negative votes cast by the board's two tenant members, after 11 other motions were raised and defeated. The board is appointed by Mayor Koch and has seats for five public members - one of which has been vacant since March - and two representatives each for tenants and landlords.

President Miguel de la Madrid today abruptly replaced his powerful Finance Minister following reports of sharp differences within his Cabinet over Mexico's response to its latest foreign debt crisis. An official statement merely said that Jesus Silva Herzog would be replaced by Gustavo Petricioli, until now head of the state-owned Nacional Financiera development bank. The shake-up immediately sparked speculation that President de la Madrid had opted not to follow the more aggressive debt strategy, including a temporary suspension of interest payments, that Mr. Silva Herzog has advocated in public in recent weeks. Badly Hurt by Oil Drop Mexico, which owes some $97 billion abroad and is the world's second-largest debtor nation after Brazil, has been badly hurt by the drop in world oil prices this year and has indicated that it needs at least $6 billion in new credits through December if it is to meet its foreign obligations.

An article in Metropolitan Report last Friday about Citisource Inc., a company that once held a city contract to manufacture hand-held computers, misidentified the court-appointed receiver for the company. He is Arnold G. Fraiman.

Court Era Ends Warren E. Burger is retiring as Chief Justice of the United States and William H. Rehnquist will be nominated to replace him, President Reagan announced. He also announced he would nominate Judge Antonin Scalia of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to the Supreme Court. [ Page A1, Columns 1-6. ] Chief Justice Burger informed President Reagan that he wanted to retire at a White House meeting three weeks ago, Administration officials said. They said Mr. Reagan was swayed as much by personal chemistry as by facts in promoting Justice Rehnquist and nominating Judge Scalia to the High Court. [ A32:2-5. ]

An article in Business Day on May 24 about a consolidation in the fashion industry questioned the financial health of Jonathan Logan, the apparel company.

New York State will expand drug rehabilitation programs and allocate $2 million to the special narcotics prosecutor as part of a new effort to fight crack, the smokable form of cocaine, Governor Cuomo announced yesterday. The state will also increase its education programs in schools and among social workers, law-enforcement officials and parents groups, the Governor said. He also announced plans to sponsor public service announcements on radio and television to make the public more aware of the dangers of the new and highly addictive drug.

The American Express Company won a compromise settlement yesterday in its two-year battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission over accounting practices that the commission said had artificially inflated the company's earnings in 1981 and 1982. American Express agreed to settle the administrative proceeding without admitting or denying the charges that it inflated the earnings of its insurance subsidiary, the Fireman's Fund Corporation. But it agreed to an order to follow all accounting rules in the future. American Express recently reduced its interest in Fireman's Fund, which had been a wholly owned subsidiary, to 27 percent.