October 20, 1991

People who have restored the interiors of old New York City homes and apartments almost invariably have concluded that the job requires a combination of the original construction techniques and more technologically advanced methods. These dual themes will be the subject of an all-day seminar on Saturday entitled "Reviving Lost Skills for Historic Interiors." It will be held from 8 A.M. to 6 P.M. at the 130-year-old Friends Meeting House, a New York City landmark at 15th Street and Second Avenue. The seminar is being sponsored jointly by the Brownstone Revival Committee, an association of people who own old houses, the New York Landmarks Conservancy, a nonprofit historic preservation group, and Traditional Building magazine, a publication for restoration professionals that is based in Brooklyn. Among the subjects to be covered at the seminar, which is designed for professionals and owners of buildings and apartments built before 1940, are repairing plaster ornamentation, refinishing wood floors, restoring woodwork and replacing historic wall coverings and lighting. A group of experienced professional crafts people will offer slide presentations, conduct discussion groups and lead workshops.

A new book says that Israel has a nuclear arsenal far larger than previously suspected by the United States Government, and further asserts that a principal potential target for those arms has been the Soviet Union. The book, by Seymour M. Hersh, an investigative reporter, says the Israelis have gone to full nuclear alert -- meaning that nuclear missiles have been wheeled out of silos and put on launchers -- three times, twice during the 1973 war and once this year, while Israel was under missile attack from Iraq. In those cases, the book says, the targets would have been the Arab nations threatening Israel. Israel's Nuclear Arms But, quoting Israeli and American officials who discussed the matter with the Israelis, Mr. Hersh says Israel's central strategic doctrine in the 1970's and much of the 1980's was that the Soviet Union should know that it was under the threat of Israeli nuclear attack. Mr. Hersh says Israel used American reconnaissance-satellite photos and other intelligence data -- some of it obtained openly and some of it illegally -- to target Soviet cities.

IT'S nearly winter here. Most tree limbs are stark against the sky. Only a few still hold their yellow leaves. Snow reports for areas of Minnesota and Wisconsin are on the radio. Cold winds blow in from the prairie. But the World Series between the Minnesota Twins and the Atlanta Braves opened last night in the 70-degree comfort of the Metrodome. Traditionalists despise domes. When baseball is played on plastic grass, it's more billiards than baseball. "This ball park," Bobby Cox, the Braves' manager, was saying, "is more different than any other ball park."

CHAIN REACTION The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics. By Thomas Byrne Edsall with Mary D. Edsall. 339 pp. New York: W. W. Norton. $22.95.

Speical Today: Sophisticated Traveler/Magazine Part 2