September 13, 1993

Inside, the old soldier was in a jumble. Yitzhak Rabin, former general and army Chief of Staff, is rarely given to public displays of emotion. But in the mildly formal sitting room of his official residence in Jerusalem, the Israeli Prime Minister churned his hands around his stomach to make the point that butterfly wings were flapping extra hard there.

Jonathan Pelto won his spurs as a certified wunderkind of Connecticut politics at age 23 when, as Gary Hart's state campaign manager, he led a kiddie corps of Hart zealots to a victory over Walter F. Mondale in the 1984 presidential primary. Elected to the state Legislature that same year, appointed statewide strategist for the Democratic Party at 25, his track seemed set and ever-upward. The young Congressman from Connecticut, maybe? With a top-loaded resume and a resonant if nasal baritone, who could tell?

As the chief executive of Deutsche Bank A.G., Germany's biggest bank, Hilmar Kopper is in a unique position to assess Germany's economic outlook. And he is surprisingly optimistic despite the lingering recession, currency market turmoil and structural problems. The optimism stems partly from the fact that at age 58, Mr. Kopper, the burly son of a Prussian farmer, sits atop Germany's most powerful financial institution with an expanding global profile and profits that are growing strongly despite the economy's weakness. But he also believes his countrymen have an attitude problem.

When Elizabeth Eppich saw that a thief had smashed the window in her mother's 1987 Chevrolet Eurosport, she feared she would find a gaping hole and torn wires where the radio had been. For a moment, she was relieved: Only the bottom section of the dashboard appeared disturbed. But when she tried to start the car, nothing happened. Then Ms. Eppich, a 21-year-old legal secretary who lives in Queens, realized all too well what the thief had been after. "Someone took the computer chip," she said in disgust. "Last year, the same thing happened when somebody stole the computer out of my father's car."

New York City yesterday headed into an unusual Democratic primary, the first time in decades that the battle for the Democratic mayoral nomination has been totally overshadowed by November's general election. Candidates raced through street rallies, visited churches and faced off in last-minute debates. But campaign managers and political strategists predicted a desultory Primary Day tomorrow, with a turnout so low as to confound predictions in the campaigns for public advocate and city comptroller -- races whose outcome could, in turn, affect the November confrontation between Mayor David N. Dinkins and the Republican-Liberal challenger, Rudolph W. Giuliani.