May 14, 1991

After a trial lasting 14 weeks, Winnie Mandela, wife of the African National Congress leader, Nelson Mandela, was found guilty in a Johannesburg court today of kidnapping four youths who were taken to her home late in 1988 and severely beaten. But Mrs. Mandela escaped conviction for assault with intent to commit grievous bodily harm. The presiding judge, Michael S. Stegmann, said prosecutors had not discredited Mrs. Mandela's alibi, in which she said that she was 200 miles away when the assaults took place. She was convicted of the less serious charge of accessory after the fact to the assaults. Lengthy Verdict Justice Stegmann, who is described by lawyers who know him as a scrupulous jurist without evident political bias, delivered a detailed verdict that took him six and a half hours to read. He variously described Mrs. Mandela's testimony as vague, evasive, equivocal, inconsistent, unconvincing and brazenly untruthful.

Betting on a bright future, the General Motors Corporation said today that it planned to raise as much as $600 million by selling an unusual type of stock that will save money for the company if the price of its common shares rises, but will cost it money if the common stock declines. General Motors, which cut its dividend by nearly half in February and later announced a loss of $1.1 billion for the first quarter, needs the money to improve its weakened cash flow. The company, the world's largest auto maker, said it planned to use the money for its global automotive and financing operations.

After declining steadily for most of this century, the average number of people living in a household in New York City began to rise again in the last decade, according to an analysis of 1990 census data by New York City planners. The reversal of the longstanding trend toward smaller households appeared to signal a return to an old phenomenon for a new generation in this city of immigrants -- one in which families with many children and older members had to live together.

After years of defending its former employees, Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. appears to be ready to cross to the opposite corner of the ring. As part of its bankruptcy reorganization plan, the once-mighty investment house has agreed to join the Government in lawsuits against some of the people who once worked for it. The agreement raises the likelihood that Drexel will join the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Resolution Trust Corporation in suing Michael R. Milken, the financier whose skills made Drexel a Wall Street powerhouse and whose crimes led to the firm's destruction. The two agencies have sued Mr. Milken and others, saying they were responsible for billions of dollars in losses to the Government in the savings and loan crisis.

THE Air Force's award last month of a huge contract to build "advanced technology fighters" marks a new era, experts say, in which virtually all new warplanes will incorporate the stealth technologies that make a plane hard to detect by its radar reflections or heat emissions. Rival teams led by the Northrop Corporation and the Lockheed Corporation competed in a fly-off last month that was the final round of a 54-month effort to win a contract that could be worth $100 billion. The Air Force preferred the entry from Lockhheed, which will now build up to 648 of its F-22 fighters.