LEAD: Even as car shoppers look over new models in dealer showrooms, some of them are being sized up themselves.

New Species for Study: Consumers in Action

LEAD: After years of denial by silence and misinformation, the Soviet Union has now disclosed that in the 1960's it was indeed racing the United States to be first to send men to the Moon.

Russians Finally Admit They Lost Race to Moon

LEAD: Acknowledging a struggle for the country's continued existence as well as its own, the Communist Party of East Germany said today that it would give up the formal trappings of power and declared itself ready to compete in elections next May with other emerging democratic forces.

BERLIN COMMUNISTS OUTLINE PLATFORM

LEAD: On a blistering July morning in 1987, Joel Breshin, a soft-spoken former New Yorker who runs the Anti-Defamation League's Arizona regional office, arrived for work and switched on the answering machine.

An 'Aryan' Who Now Attacks Anti-Semitism

LEAD: IN grainy, tactile black-and-white, the Mick crunches one of his 536 home runs. For those of a certain age, as comfortable now in front of their television sets as they once were in the bleachers, it is yesterday again.

Sports-Tape Sales On Fast Forward

LEAD: Like the $1 subway and bus fares, the Board of Estimate and Mayor Edward I. Koch, the yellow legal pad is about to become a relic of New York City government.

Metro Matters; A Legal Pad That's White? Say It Isn't So

LEAD: You could pin it on Deborah Norville and Jane Pauley.

Sales of Costume Jewelry Sparkle

LEAD: Yelena G. Bonner stepped up to the bier of Andrei D. Sakharov, who was lying in state at the Palace of Youth here today, rested her head on the edge of the coffin and tenderly stroked her husband's cheek.

Upheaval in the East; Tearful Widow Stands Guard As Throng Honors Sakharov

LEAD: A Federal jury ruled on Friday that American Airlines and United Airlines did not monopolize the computerized airline reservations industry through their control of the two largest computer systems that travel agents use to book plane tickets.

Airlines Cleared of Rigging Their Reservation Systems

LEAD: In a celebratory mood, Brazilians voted in the first free presidential election since 1960. Experts said the voting was too close to call last night.

Exuberant Brazil Chooses President

LEAD: A number of lawyers who specialize in biotechnology warn that a court decision last week on the patent rights to a new drug worth hundreds of millions of dollars could be devastating to Amgen Inc., the market pioneer.

Ruling May Hurt Amgen's Rights to Drug

LEAD: Commercial banks, which have often sold portions of their loan portfolios as a way to reduce risk and clean up balance sheets, are becoming increasingly active in selling senior debt used to finance leveraged buyouts.

Bank Sales Of Buyout Debt Rising

LEAD: Every night for the last three years, Elsie Owens and a dozen neighbors in the Gordon Heights section of Coram have patrolled their streets to discourage the prostitutes and crack dealers who have moved in. The police say that most of the dealers are transients living in welfare boardinghouses that have sprung up among the modest, neatly kept homes of this Suffolk

Suffolk Approves a Ban On Welfare Placements

LEAD: A woman who linked the Salvadoran Army to the killing of six Jesuit priests last month said today that she and her husband were repeatedly accused of lying by United States and Salvadoran investigators and at one point were threatened with deportation. Administration officials deny the charges.

Witnesses in Jesuit Slayings Charge Harassment in U.S.

LEAD: His right shoulder still ached, but Ken O'Brien ran from the sideline to the huddle today and tried to revive the Jets at a moment when their season was taking another bad turn. But they were already done.

Rams Crunch Blundering Jets, 38-14

LEAD: For five years, Rutgers University has bustled with change as New Jersey has pumped millions of dollars into its state university in a carefully drawn plan to raise its image and the state's.

A Legacy for Rutgers: Pride and Growth

LEAD: Federal officials here said today that they had unearthed and were pursuing a number of leads in the killing of a Federal appellate judge who died instantly Saturday in the explosion of a bomb in a package mailed to his suburban house.

Officials Say They Have Leads In Killing of Judge in Alabama

LEAD: The third-quarter play was executed perfectly. Lee Johnson sideswiped the kickoff and the football bounced downed the right sideline, where Ira Hillary snatched it before running out of bounds at the Houston Oilers' 34-yard line. Cincinnati Bengals ball. One more time.

Bengals Rub Oilers' Noses In Turf, 61-7

LEAD: Richard Colby was upset. There he was, standing on the studio-audience line for the ''Donahue'' show at 30 Rockefeller Center, saying he did not like it one bit that a Japanese corporation was now the building's majority owner.

Huge Japanese Realty Deals Breeding Jokes and Anger

LEAD: American businesses are rushing to Eastern Europe with visions of tapping new markets for consumers and developing low-cost manufacturing bases, but experts on the region warn that formidable obstacles remain.

Eastern Europe's Lures and Hurdles

Business Digest

LEAD: Thousands of protesters clashed with the police over an effort to deport a cleric who championed people of Hungarian stock. Page A14.

Unrest in Western Rumania

LEAD:  Killing of U.S. Officer Raises Panama Tensions  Washington said the fatal shooting of an unarmed American army officer by Panamanian soldiers Saturday was part of a pattern of ''aggression'' by Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega. Officials would not rule out a military response. Page A7.  Death of a Drug Baron  Colombia told how it finally tracked down Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha, a major drug trafficker, and said it expected reprisals for the killing of the cocaine kingpin.

INSIDE

LEAD: Even as it nears completion of a $500 million rebuilding project that will make it one of the country's largest and best-equipped health-care institutions, the Presbyterian Hospital finds itself in a financial crisis that threatens its survival as a teaching center.

As a Hospital Grows, Debts Threaten It

LEAD: The total debt of third world countries is still rising, and an increasing number of countries are accumulating arrears, the World Bank said today.

Third World Borrowing Still Growing

Ashley Victoria Benson is an American actress and singer. Her accolades include four Teen Choice Awards, a Young Hollywood Award, as well as three People's Choice Award nominations.

December 18, 1989

Headlines from December 18, 1989

New Species for Study: Consumers in Action

Russians Finally Admit They Lost Race to Moon

BERLIN COMMUNISTS OUTLINE PLATFORM

An 'Aryan' Who Now Attacks Anti-Semitism

Sports-Tape Sales On Fast Forward

Billboard 200

Storm Front

Girl You Know It's True

Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814

Forever Your Girl

Hangin' Tough

Notable Births

Historical Context for December 18, 1989