August 11, 1994

THE sofa bed is to guest quarters what a casual wave is to a formal bow: it's an acknowledgment but hardly a red-carpet welcome. With its pain-in-the-back bar, stub-your-toe frame and thin, lumpy mattress the sofa bed of memory is as much a menace to guests as it is a haven for them. But for a pressed-for-space apartment dweller with persistent out-of-town guests, isn't the sofa bed better than the froufrou chaise, the forever-wrinkled daybed or no bed at all?

If ever a town labored for integration, it is Montclair. Since a 1968 court desegregation order, this suburban enclave has struggled mightily for racial balance in its schools and to keep its neighborhoods stable. The effort had seemed successful. After a painful interlude of forced busing, the district created a magnet-school program that averted white flight and induced parents to send their children to school across town. Montclair became integration Eden, a model for other districts and a haven for young families seeking a solid education in a multi-ethnic town.

ORMAN W. KETCHAM put on a wig, stuck two enormous "beaver" teeth between his lips, went out on stage and danced his version of the Charleston. His recent performance was as much a surprise to him as it was to the audience, many of whom summed it up with their favorite word -- awesome. Mr. Ketcham, 75, is a retired judge of the Juvenile and Superior courts of the District of Columbia. The audience in the big rustic cabin on the scenic shore of Lake Vanare in upstate New York consisted of 82 critically ill and severely handicapped children between ages 6 and 16. They were spending eight days at the Double "H" Hole in the Woods Ranch, founded last year by Paul Newman, the actor, and Charles R. Wood, a philanthropist, in Lake Luzerne, N.Y.

Unless owners and players reach an 11th-hour labor agreement, the baseball season will come to a halt after the 10 games that are scheduled today. Don Mattingly, the Yankee captain, wondered if today's game might be the last of his career. Page B13. Pleading for Players Donald Fehr, the union leader, has a dour public image that belies a sense of humor and unflinching dedication. Page B13. What About the Fans? The looming strike is all about millionaires. And economists say those millionaires ought to think about the hot-dog vendors and the 10-year-old fans. Economic Scene, page D1. Advertisers Won't Suffer The biggest loser in a strike? Baseball, and not the advertisers. Advertising, page D1.

Starr Outlines Inquiry The new Whitewater prosecutor said he would retain many of his predecessor's staff lawyers but hinted at revisiting his findings. Page B10. Rabin and Arafat Meet Israel's Prime Minister met the P.L.O. chairman in Gaza and pledged to expand self-rule. Page A11. U.N. Warns Bosnian Muslims The United Nations warned the Bosnian Army, that it, too, could face a NATO air raid in Sarajevo. Page A10. A Rwandan Family's Odyssey Longing to go home, a Rwandan recounts his family's arduous journey from a comfortable house in the capital to a grim refugee camp. Page A3.

WOODSTOCK '94: THE QUEST FOR MEANING So what does it mean, this much-ballyhooed marking of a pop-cultural milestone, served up as a celebration but condemned as a sell-out, a counterculture theme park with too many rules? "I don't think there is any single answer," said Allen Ginsberg, the poet. "It could be both a continuation of the spirit of Woodstock and a co-optation or a commercialization or a commodification of that spirit." Then again, Woodstock '94 could be just one very long concert. A1. The security at Woodstock '94 is supposed to be impenetrable, but there have been breaches. B6.

If a baseball strike begins tomorrow, the biggest loser is likely to be the sport itself rather than the advertisers that sponsor the play-by-play broadcasts and sell their products through promotions with baseball themes. To be sure, companies that spend advertising dollars to be affiliated with baseball would be dismayed at having their elaborate plans disrupted by the long-threatened strike, whether they are local auto dealers with budgets of tens of thousands of dollars or national brewers with budgets of tens of millions of dollars.

Thomas F. Prendergast, a senior vice president of the New York City Transit Authority, is to be named the new president of the Long Island Rail Road, officials of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said today. Mr. Prendergast, 42, who was in charge of emergency planning when Long Island Rail Road workers went on a two-day strike in June, is regarded among many he has worked with as a skilled manager who avoids disputes, works well with unions and thrives under pressure.

Forced to testify under oath, the men who run the nation's most secret intelligence service publicly apologized today for burying the $347 million budget for their new headquarters under a cloak of classification. "We have been negligent, clearly negligent, for not showing the budget breakout for this project," Roger Marsh, project manager for the new headquarters of the National Reconnaissance Office, told the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Taslima Nasrin, a feminist writer who faces death threats from Islamic militants in Bangladesh, fled to Sweden and quickly went into hiding. Ms. Nasrin, whose case has drawn comparisons with that of Salman Rushdie, spent two months as a fugitive in her own country before appearing in a courtroom last week to face charges of defaming Islam.

When he was a junior at Hobart College, Richard M. Rosenbaum fondly recalls, he defeated a heavily favored adversary to claim the school's heavyweight boxing title. The story, filled with dramatic descriptions of body punches and knock downs, has become more than glory-days banter for Mr. Rosenbaum. It is a motivational parable about tenacity, the trait he values most as he battles for the Republican nomination for governor.

As a critically injured Belarussian girl lies sedated in Bellevue Hospital Center, her feuding mother and grandmother are each on their way to claim her, setting the battleground for a tangled custody dispute. Lidiya Kitayev's paternal grandmother is to arrive this afternoon at Kennedy International Airport. Her mother is to arrive tomorrow. Both claim parental rights to raise the girl who fell four stories in her father's suicide leap from a homeless shelter in Manhattan last week.