March 18, 1987

LEAD: FROM its historical status as Santa Anna's Alamo-era camp to its present-day stature as a bastion for bucks, luxe and tuxes, the site of the new Fairmount Hotel is a fitting monument to the recent revolution in the Texas hotel industry. Both a product and a victim of the oil boom, luxurious hotels were built throughout Texas in the late 1970's and early 80's by oil-rich, property-rich and cattle-rich Texas families that wanted to diversify.

LEAD: The Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation announced a management-backed buyout proposal today that would create several ''alliances'' with Fujitsu Ltd., but skirt the political controversy that curtailed Fairchild's sale to the Japanese company.

LEAD: ''The secret to retirement is to keep working.'' - Elizabeth Hall (not Yogi Berra), an 89-year-old horticulturalist, who has failed miserably in repeated attempts to retire.

LEAD: SHE is heard before she is even seen, but although the words are those of Lady Macbeth, the accent is a fractured Polish that immediately sends a wave of laughter rippling through the audience. When Anka does appear, backing onstage in sweatsocks and a voluminous nightgown, she is holding her hands out and moaning, ''Out, damned spot!

LEAD: The Reagan Administration will consider policies to block foreign takeovers of companies in security-sensitive industries, officials said today.

LEAD: It was a typical scene in Calcutta. Over an open fire on a noisy traffic island a woman was cooking lunch while her children, naked or in rags, pushed each other waiting for something to eat.

LEAD: Defying the Vatican's doctrinal statement on human procreation last week, several Roman Catholic medical institutions in Europe said today that they would continue to help sterile couples conceive children through in-vitro fertilization.

LEAD: The ranting man in the basement room of the Manhattan apartment building had fired half a dozen shots at police officers.

LEAD: At a time when much of the remaining landscape of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut is being rapidly plotted for development, government agencies and urban planners have undertaken a broad new campaign to preserve open space.

LEAD: A Federal appeals court today opened the way for the indictment of Michael K. Deaver, the former White House aide turned lobbyist, on perjury charges.

LEAD: Harley Davidson Inc., the sole surviving motorcycle manufacturer in the United States, roared into the international trade spotlight yesterday with a surprise request that the Government withdraw tariff protections granted four years ago to save it from Japanese competitors.

LEAD: Faced with growing resistance from the Legislature, Governor Cuomo battled today to save the commission he appointed to investigate government ethics.