April 14, 1991

Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer were arguably Hollywood's hottest production team during the late 1980's, with a string of hits for Paramount Pictures that included "Top Gun" and the two "Beverly Hills Cop" films. Early last year, they were rewarded by Paramount with a new five-year contract that was lucrative even by the bloated standards of the movie business. But in November, barely 10 months later, the studio severed its ties to the pair. Publicly, both sides said the split had nothing to do with the disappointing performance last summer of "Days of Thunder," starring Tom Cruise. But it wasn't difficult for anyone in Hollywood to read between the lines. Paramount, by then suffering from a string of expensive flops, had decided it could no longer stomach the high-cost movies it had looked to Mr. Simpson and Mr. Bruckheimer to make. And in dumping the producers, the studio's management hoped to demonstrate to its nervous parent, Paramount Communications Inc., newfound commitment to financial restraint.

FOR more than 100 years, the spire of the Cathedral of the Incarnation has cast a stately calm over Garden City, America's first cathedral town. Now the calm is being shaken. The 13th-century-style Gothic cathedral, once the Island's tallest building, dominates the village landscape. It is a focal point of grace and old-fashioned stability for the affluent community where the Morgans, Cushings, Vanderbilts and Astors gathered. The village enjoys its conservative style and history. It resists change.

Angry over agreements that allow Poland and Egypt to escape foreign debt obligations, Japanese officials say the Government will not provide loans it had promised to those nations and will refuse new loans to other countries that seek debt forgiveness. The Japanese have been bitterly criticizing President Bush's plan to forgive billions of dollars of the official debt of Poland and Egypt. Officials in Japan's Finance Ministry and its Export-Import Bank, the key agency intended to handle Japan's loans to developing countries, say the Japanese will not fulfill Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu's promises to lend Poland $500 million and to provide several loans to Egypt. Tokyo Asserts Itself The rift between Japan and the United States is a sign of Japan's growing assertiveness on foreign-aid issues and in setting its own agenda for helping the developing world. The two countries are at odds over a fundamental point in the strategy for dealing with the debt crisis: how big a role politics should be allowed to play in making these economic judgments, and whose political standards should be applied.

THE PATRIARCH The Rise and Fall of the Bingham Dynasty. By Susan E. Tifft and Alex S. Jones. Illustrated. 574 pp. New York: Summit Books. $24.95.

THEY'RE on their way. Gypsy moths, those inch-long hairy creatures whose insatiable appetite for leaves has sometimes left Connecticut trees bare in mid-summer, will be visiting again this year. Entomologists who track the moths' path said their itinerary could include Ridgefield, New Fairfield and Newtown. High concentrations of egg masses, which eventually hatch into leaf-hungry caterpillars, have been detected in parts of those towns.