LEAD: A remarkable comeback appears to be taking shape on Wall Street.

Shearson Deal May Embrace The Man Who Built the Firm

LEAD: Despite the wish of politicians in Bonn to speed up the monetary and economic union of East and West Germany, the president of the West German Bundesbank, Karl Otto Pohl, said today that it would take ''a few months, at the least,'' even after the East German elections on March 18.

Bonn's Top Banker Urges Caution

LEAD: After Nicaragua's election, the victorious opposition faces the challenge of governing, while the Sandinistas try to adjust to a new role. Page A20.

Transition in Managua

LEAD: The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Air Force chief of staff expressed concern today that the recent agreement to cut American and Soviet forces in Europe would hamper the Pentagon's ability to deploy forces there.

BUSH DRAWS FIRE OVER TROOP CUTS

LEAD: An important witness in the killing of a black teen-ager in Bensonhurst last summer has disappeared, the Brooklyn District Attorney, Charles J. Hynes, said yesterday.

Prosecutors Say Witness In Race Case Is Missing

LEAD: One day after the indictment of the Exxon Corporation on charges stemming from the Alaska oil spill, Federal officials expressed disappointment today about the failure to arrange a plea bargain in the case.

Justice Officials See Exxon Trial as Risk for U.S.

LEAD: Last fall, the first waves of East German refugees were greeted with tears and Champagne. Now they are increasingly met with resentment and disdain.

Upheaval in the East;   West Germans Barring Door To Their Kin From the East

LEAD: New York City Schools Chancellor Joseph A. Fernandez and John Cardinal O'Connor have come into conflict over where publicly financed drug counselors should work with parochial school students.

Fernandez and O'Connor Clash on Drug-Counseling Sites

LEAD: Three days after his Government was routed in national elections, President Daniel Ortega Saavedra today declared an immediate cease-fire with the American-supported contras.

Turnover in Nicaragua;   NICARAGUAN RIVALS FOCUS ON CONTRAS IN ELECTION'S WAKE

LEAD: It stares them in the face, yet still does not roll off their tongues. First place, after all, is a fairly foreign concept, so the Rangers speak of it haltingly. Nearly half a century of finishing someplace other than in first will do that to an organization.

Gingerly, Rangers Are Adjusting to Top

LEAD: Sanford I. (Sandy) Weill built one Wall Street empire with a keen eye for value that helped make up for the fact he did not start with a lot of money.

In the Weill Empire, Some Mixed Results

LEAD: The Treasury Department's struggles to find a replacement for M. Danny Wall as the nation's top Federal savings and loan regulator are such that it could be weeks, even months, before a permanent successor is named, Government officials and industry experts said today.

Difficulties In Filling Wall's Job

LEAD: When Joseph A. Fernandez was named New York City schools chancellor six months ago, he shrewdly understood that his predecessor, the late Dr. Richard R. Green, had been all but doomed by two factors: high public expectations and his own failure to identify short-term, achievable and visible goals.

Metro Matters;   For Chancellor, Inroads Mixed With Questions

LEAD: SPRING has been teasing for weeks. It's particularly hard on gardeners tortured by a torrent of mail-order catalogues with pictures of perfect plants. If sanity is to prevail through the latest blast of Arctic air, the antidote might be a pilgrimage to one of those annual extravaganzas called flower shows.

Regiments of Flowers Protesting Winter's Iron Rule

LEAD: The Supreme Court ruled today that the Constitution's prohibition against unreasonable searches does not bar American law-enforcement agents who lack warrants from searching and seizing property owned by foreigners in foreign countries.

Supreme Court Roundup;   Justices Uphold Property Searches Of Foreigners in Foreign Countries

LEAD: Theodore J. Forstmann, a senior partner at Forstmann Little & Company, told investors yesterday that he had given up his efforts to raise money for a new investment fund.

Forstmann Ends Effort For Fund

LEAD: The agent in charge of the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration in New York City and a top undercover agent for it are leaving the D.E.A. with harsh words about Federal drug policy, saying that it is ill conceived and that the Government's operations abroad are futile.

Retiring Agents Sharply Attack Drug Policies

LEAD:    COMPANIES       Sanford I. Weill may be on the verge of returning to run his old firm, Shearson Lehman Hutton, which he sold in 1981 in a bid to create what was viewed as the financial services company of the future. Mr. Weill is said to be in talks with American Express that could lead to the creation of the largest U.S.

BUSINESS DIGEST

LEAD: STEPHEN CECCHETTI, an economist who lives in Columbus, Ohio, says his 2-year-old son Daniel stays up every night until 10 or 10:30. Mr. Cecchetti would like Daniel to go to bed earlier, but he doesn't insist. ''We're not disciplined people,'' says Mr. Cecchetti, whose wife, Ruth Charney, is a mathematician.

The Battle Of Bedtime: Children Won

LEAD: By most accounts, the 1984 Reagan Administration plan to increase American trade with 27 nations in the Caribbean and Central America has yet to become what many hailed it at the time: the catalyst needed to generate new industries and more varied agriculture among a largely poor assemblage of one-crop economies.

Shifts in U.S. Policy Sought To Spur Caribbean Trade

LEAD: The nation's economy grew at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of nine-tenths of 1 percent in the fourth quarter of 1989, somewhat stronger than the Commerce Department had initially estimated, but still the weakest quarterly performance since 1986, even allowing for last year's long strike at the Boeing

G.N.P. Rate For Late '89 Put at 0.9%

LEAD: The Manhattan District Attorney announced yesterday that despite ''some questionable financial transactions,'' no criminal charges would be brought against the Rev. Bruce Ritter, who resigned unexpectedly on Tuesday night as president of Covenant House.

No Charges Against Ritter On Finances

LEAD: Struggling to house an ever-increasing number of prisoners, New York State will double the capacity of many of its medium-security prisons by installing bunk beds for the first time, Cuomo administration officials said today.

New York Plans to Double-Bunk Inmates in 10 of Its State Prisons

LEAD: ABOUT five years ago, Mark Ohe and Leslie Steven came to Manhattan from Chicago feeling sure they would be able to find a place in which they could both live and work. They did. It just wasn't as easy as they thought it would be.

Little Space, Lots of Style, At $50 a Month

LEAD:    An Economic Improvement Is Revealed in Latest Data    The economy grew at an annual rate of nine-tenths of 1 percent in the fourth quarter last year. The performance was stronger than initially estimated but still the weakest in any quarter since 1986. Page D1.       5 Defect From Shamir Party    Five Likud members of the Israeli Parliament bolted to form a new opposition party, deepening Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's political problems.

INSIDE

Steve Jackson Games (SJGames) is a game company, founded in 1980 by Steve Jackson, that creates and publishes role-playing, board, and card games, and the gaming magazine Pyramid.

Steve Jackson Games is raided by the United States Secret Service, prompting the later formation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

March 1, 1990

Headlines from March 1, 1990

Shearson Deal May Embrace The Man Who Built the Firm

Bonn's Top Banker Urges Caution

Transition in Managua

BUSH DRAWS FIRE OVER TROOP CUTS

Prosecutors Say Witness In Race Case Is Missing

Billboard 200

Forever Your Girl

Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814

Girl You Know It's True

...But Seriously

Cosmic Thing

Historical Events

Historical Context for March 1, 1990