LEAD: The Educational Testing Service, whose tests have helped shape the lives of tens of millions of Americans, is often thought of as an impenetrable and awe-provoking institution on the lines of, say, Fort Knox or the Central Intelligence Agency.

Behind the Awesome S.A.T., A Company With a Product

LEAD: After several years of higher and higher profits, corporations are beginning to share the wealth with stockholders. Dividend increases are climbing sharply this year as many blue-chip companies find themselves awash in cash.

More Companies Raise Dividends

LEAD: A school tosses out a moldy old mural. It falls into the hands of an art conservator, who restores the painting. Sixteen years later, the once-worthless work is appraised at $1.25 million. Who is the rightful owner? The school? Or the conservator?

Once Moldy, Now Worth $1 Million, a Mural Starts a Fight

LEAD: While Ted Bundy awaited the electric chair and crowds outside the prison at Starke, Fla., chanted in jubilation, a Seattle family gathered to reflect on the killer's final confessions.

For Families, Killer's Death Eases Doubts but Not Pain

LEAD: During the long walk through the tunnel from the arena to the dressing rooms today, Isiah Thomas asked Charles Barkley in a bantering tone: ''Did you get enough shots? Did you get enough playing time?'' Both smiled.

West Stars Set Mark and Win

LEAD: Gov. Mario M. Cuomo said today that he would insist on legislative approval of any deal to close the Shoreham nuclear power plant, despite a Federal court's urging that a settlement be fashioned without the State Legislature.

CUOMO WANTS VOTE ON SHOREHAM DEAL

LEAD: Is electronic trading the wave of the future in commodities markets? Will it spell the death of the ''open outcry'' system that has dominated the markets for 140 years, or will it prove to be an expensive toy that is little used? Will it help prevent trading abuses, or will it encourage them?

Market Place

LEAD:  Tritium Sales Continue  Despite concern over tritium supplies for the nation's nuclear arsenal, the Government continues to sell the gas for commercial use. Page A17.  New Sri Lanka Violence  At least 55 people were reported killed in the last weekend before Sri Lanka elects a Parliament.

INSIDE

LEAD:  NEW YORK  Government offices: Federal and state offices open, local offices closed.  Post offices: Regular delivery.  Banks: State-chartered banks have option to close; federally chartered banks open.  Parking: Alternate-side rules suspended.  Sanitation: No collections or street cleanings.

Lincoln's Birthday

LEAD: A Congressional committee has asked the Government to restrict the Navy's authority to award computer contracts without the supervision of the General Services Administration.

Limit Sought On Contracts From Navy

LEAD:  The Economy  President Bush's savings rescue plan is taking its lumps after a glowing initial reception. Lawmakers are now complaining that the package is short on money, weak on detail and likely to become a budgetary nightmare in the future. Nonetheless, quick Congressional approval is likely.

Business Digest

LEAD: It is lunchtime, and Yaacov Nachum, a restaurateur, is sitting alone at one of his cafe's sunlit street-side tables, sipping Turkish coffee and considering the banks of empty tables around him.

Israelis View a Battered Economy As Motivation for a Peace Effort

LEAD: After an almost euphoric reception by Congress last Monday, President Bush's plan to rescue the savings and loan industry is getting somewhat bruised. Lawmakers are complaining that the proposal is short on money, weak on detail and likely to become a budgetary nightmare down the road.

Bush Plan On Savings Under Fire

LEAD: The Socialist Government of Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez is pressing ahead with one of this decade's most daring economic experiments - a mixture of free-market and leftist policies that has often been called ''supply-side Socialism.''

Spain's Daring Experiment In 'Supply-Side Socialism'

LEAD: For nearly 14 years New York State's special nursing-homes prosecutor kept hoping that the check was in the mail. It has finally arrived, and with it a sorry chapter in the annals of health care has ended.

Metro Matters; Bergman Legacy: $1,376,032 Check And 110 Auditors

LEAD: After falling into administrative chaos and developing a backlog of nearly 90,000 cases, the state agency that administers New York City's rent laws has registered a small victory. In recent weeks it resolved more cases than it took on.

Rent Agency Begins Moving Beyond Chaos

LEAD: The Bush Administration and the independent prosecutor in the trial of Oliver L. North defused an angry five-day court battle today with an agreement covering how national secrets will be handled at the trial.

ACCORD IS REACHED TO GUARD SECRETS AT NORTH'S TRIAL

LEAD: Women and girls use computers; men and boys love them. And that difference appears to be a critical reason that computers in America remain a predominantly male province.

Computing in America: A Masculine Mystique

LEAD: Financial executives of some of the country's largest companies will begin a major campaign tomorrow to try to modify proposed accounting rules, due out tomorrow, that would require them to subtract tens of millions of dollars from reported net earnings.

Change Sought in Retiree Cost Rules

LEAD: EVERY team sport has its training season, but baseball is the only sport whose pre-season preparation has a special name that conjures up special feelings. No one speaks expressively about ''summer training'' in pro football. Everyone, however, talks about ''spring training,'' as in, ''I can't wait 'til spring training starts.

Spring Training

LEAD: There's no greater teacher than experience, and for the Edmonton Oilers, there has been no worse experience than trying to find a way to play without Wayne Gretzky. Lessons have been numerous and painful. Last night, it turned out those lessons could be useful, too, as the Oilers beat the Rangers, 3-1, at Madison Square Garden.

Oilers Find Way to Shut Down Rangers, 3-1

LEAD: Elie Wiesel looked out tonight at an audience of Jews from Kiev, Tbilisi, Leningrad and Moscow, and from Jewish organizations around the world, as he inaugurated the first officially approved Jewish cultural center in the Soviet Union. He looked into the faces in the audience, recalling his first visit to Jews in the Soviet

Lasting Faith Of Soviet Jews Moves Wiesel

LEAD: Japan, it seems safe to say, bears little resemblance to sub-Saharan Africa.

Japan, Land of Look-Alike Cars, Goes Offbeat

LEAD: It may be true that you can't get something for nothing. But as the folks at Shearson Lehman Hutton would like to be the first to tell you, you can get a lot for a little if you put your money in the right place and are willing to wait a couple of decades.

Zeroing In

LEAD: At 75, Donald Bartlett manages to cut enough wood to keep the house cozy and warm, even these days when the temperature has staggered between minus 10 and plus 5 degrees on the shores of Lake Champlain.

The Edlerly And Students Aid Neediest

Rodrigo Pereira Possebon is a professional football executive and former player who played as a midfielder. He is the current director of football of Athletico Paranaense.

Rodrigo Possebon, Brazilian footballer

Rodrigo_Possebon

Wayne Levere Hays was an American politician who served as a U.S. Representative from Ohio from 1949 to 1976. A Democrat, he resigned from Congress after a much-publicized sex scandal.

February 13, 1989

Headlines from February 13, 1989

Behind the Awesome S.A.T., A Company With a Product

More Companies Raise Dividends

Once Moldy, Now Worth $1 Million, a Mural Starts a Fight

For Families, Killer's Death Eases Doubts but Not Pain

West Stars Set Mark and Win

Billboard 200

Appetite For Destruction

Don't Be Cruel

Traveling Wilburys

G N' R Lies

Open Up And Say...Ahh!

Notable Births

Notable Deaths

Historical Context for February 13, 1989