October 19, 1989

LEAD: Secondary stocks showed more strength than blue chips yesterday as the market regained stability after last Friday's tumble. The American Stock Exchange composite index was up 2.91 points, or eight-tenths of 1 percent, to 378.07, and the Nasdaq composite index, the primary measure of over-the-counter stock movement, rose 3.35 points, or seven-tenths of 1 percent, to 463.28.

LEAD: Confronted with increasing demands for change, the East German Communist Party today ousted Erich Honecker, its hard-line leader of 18 years, and named his 52-year-old protege to replace him.

LEAD: THE MARKETS Investment bankers postponed two ''junk bond'' offerings totaling more than $1.2 billion because of volatile conditions in the high-risk, high-yield market. And Kohlberg & Company said Drexel Burnham Lambert, which was ''highly confident'' it could raise $75 million in financing for its buyout of Colorado Prime last summer, was unable to finance the deal through junk bonds.

LEAD: THE SCENE GLIMPSES Heroism and Camaraderie

LEAD: The managing director of CBS Masterworks, the classical music arm of CBS Records, has kept a low profile during the last year as he planned his reorganization of the label.

LEAD: San Francisco's skyscrapers, which over the last generation have given the gentle bayfront city the look of a modern metropolis, came through the earthquake Tuesday with little or no damage, thanks in large part to tough codes for earthquake resistance enacted in California over the last 15 to 20 years.

LEAD: Leading scientists said recent experiments on low-temperature nuclear fusion have produced enough interesting results to justify more research.

LEAD: ''FORGIVE the dog toys,'' said Heloise, pointing her manicured finger to the rubber skunk, sea anenome, hamburger and ice-cream bar embedded in the grass. The visitor certainly did. After all, this was Heloise. The 38-year-old household-hints writer, who in 1977 inherited her mother's fabled column, ''Hints from Heloise,'' has been called the ''high priestess of housework'' and ''the maven of the mundane.

LEAD: A second grand jury has refused to bring any criminal charges against two white police officers in the 1986 death of a black man in Middletown, N.Y., the special state prosecutor handling the case announced today.

LEAD: Stock Market Stabilizes; Pressure on 'Junk Bonds'

LEAD: When Ronald and Nancy Reagan arrive here on Friday for an eight-day stay in Japan, the Government will naturally roll out the carpet, but their main host will be a communications empire that permeates daily life in Japan although it is scarcely known abroad.

LEAD: Ruth W. Messinger was running for higher office well before she decided on the particular office - the Manhattan borough presidency, as it turned out - but she does not seem to be waiting for the election to begin her new line of work.