August 14, 1991

When Richard M. Rosenberg took over as chief executive of the BankAmerica Corporation a little more than a year ago, he gave little hint of what was to come. Known in banking circles as the marketing maven responsible for innovations like putting scenery on checks, he was expected to concentrate on building the Bank of America's California retail franchise. But Mr. Rosenberg is turning into an empire builder. With the announcement this week that it will buy the Security Pacific Corporation, BankAmerica took a big step toward becoming one of the first nationwide banks, fulfilling the vision of the Bank of America's founder, A. P. Giannini. Hard-Driving Ball of Energy And Mr. Rosenberg, a short, hard-driving ball of energy, is on his way to becoming, quite possibly, the most powerful banker in the nation.

In the world's financial markets, it is a foregone conclusion that the Bundesbank will raise interest rates when its leaders reconvene Thursday after a month-long vacation. The burning question is: by how much? Helmut Schlesinger, the German central bank's new president, has hinted publicly that higher interest rates are needed to combat an upsurge in German inflation caused by higher taxes that took effect in July and wage increases granted earlier this year. Last week's annoucement that western Germany's inflation rose at a 4.4 percent annual rate in July, the highest level in nine years, reinforced his view.

Companies Clark M. Clifford resigned as First American Bankshares' chairman. Federal investigators have said Washington's largest bank holding company was secretly controlled by B.C.C.I. Mr. Clifford apparently resigned under pressure from Federal regulators and the board of the bank he led for nine years. Mr. Clifford's law partner and protege, Robert A. Altman, president of a holding company tied to First American, resigned as well. [ A1. ]

The evening of Saturday, Sept. 19, 1981, was one of those precious, glorious occasions when magic percolates in a metropolis often too frazzled to feel. Art Garfunkel remembers that it had been raining, until the sun popped out just in time to set. "You know how the rain cleans the air and makes everything so lovely?" he asked.

A power surge at dawn today knocked out instruments that operators used to control the reactor at a nuclear power plant in upstate New York and caused the failure of a succession of systems that monitored the plant's operations. Workers at the Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station, on Lake Ontario about six miles from Oswego, were never in danger from a release of radiation, said the plant's operator and co-owner, the Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation.