BRIGHT PROMISE AND DARK DECLINE: PORTRAIT OF COUPLE IN CHILD MURDER CASE; Hedda Nussbaum

BRIGHT PROMISE AND DARK DECLINE: PORTRAIT OF COUPLE IN CHILD MURDER CASE; Hedda Nussbaum

By STEVEN ERLANGER

LEAD: To her friends and former colleagues, the disintegration of Hedda Nussbaum seemed to have an inevitability they felt powerless to stop.

To her friends and former colleagues, the disintegration of Hedda Nussbaum seemed to have an inevitability they felt powerless to stop.

In only eight years, they say, she was transformed from a skillful, articulate senior editor and author of children's books at Random House to an increasingly ineffective and absent employee whom the publishing house had to dismiss, reluctantly, in August 1982.

But the loss of that institutional affiliation, however unavoidable, seemed to accelerate Ms. Nussbaum's isolation, estrangement and deterioration, these friends say. She became even more dependent on her longtime lover, Joel Barnet Steinberg, a lawyer who is described by those who met him as a Svengali with a mesmeric hold on a woman with little remaining self-respect, whom, they say, he frequently beat and belittled.

The adoption in 1981 of an infant girl named Elizabeth, whom Mr. Steinberg and Ms. Nussbaum are now accused of murdering, ''was greeted by Hedda with glee and excitement,'' said one friend, who, like most of the dozen interviewed, requested anonymity. ''I think she thought the little girl was going to be an answer - a protection from Joel.'' Attempt to Halt Adoption

Yet it had become so clear by then to Ms. Nussbaum's colleagues that she was regularly beaten - despite Ms. Nussbaum's regular denials that her injuries came from abuse and her attacks against the nosiness of others - that at least one co-worker said she had tried to have the adoption stopped.

''When the news was that Hedda was trying to adopt a baby, I was stunned, because I couldn't believe the abuse would stop,'' the former colleague said. She called the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. But when she was informed that any effort to interfere with an adoption would require a public complaint, she desisted.

''I knew the adoption was shady,'' the colleague said. ''I was worried about Joel and the stories of his drug and mob connections. I didn't tell a soul I did this.

''But if I had the skills then that I have now,'' said the woman, now a social worker, ''I would never have left it at that.'' 'Working With Kids'

Walter Retan, then a division vice president of Random House and editor in chief of children's books, hired Ms. Nussbaum in September 1974. A Hunter College graduate who had taught in New York City public schools, ''she was very attractive as a prospective employee,'' Mr. Retan said.

''She had the experience of working with kids,'' he added. ''She was interested in science and she could write well.''

Although sometimes moody, ''she was a very nice person, sweet and very talented,'' Mr. Retan said.

Ms. Nussbaum kept the nature of her relationship with Mr. Steinberg, whom she had met on Long Island, largely to herself, Mr. Retan said.

''He came to a party or two, and none of us liked him particularly,'' Mr. Retan recalled. ''But she did say that when she did go to move in with him, and he found out that she had kept her apartment and sublet it, that he was furious. And at least one friend said to her, 'You should get out now.' But she didn't.'' Knowledge of Beatings

Mr. Retan left Random House in November 1978. Before then, he recalled, ''we really did know what was going on, that he was beating her up regularly.''

''What we didn't know was if she were hitting him back,'' he said.

Once, he said, in a discussion of relationships, Ms. Nussbaum made ''a quiet reference, like, 'If people only knew how one lived.' ''

He said: ''The idea was, 'We all do strange things in our private lives.' And she sounded pleased about it.''

About Mr. Steinberg, he said, ''there must have been something mesmerizing about this man.'' High Praise for Work

Larry Weinberg, a lawyer turned writer, worked with Ms. Nussbaum at Random House and was represented, for a time, by Mr. Steinberg. Mr. Weinberg, who met Ms. Nussbaum in 1981 and remained closer to her than anyone else from her Random House days, had high praise for her as an editor and writer.

''She was sensitive, extremely gentle and loving to a writer, enormously encouraging and, at the same time, deft,'' Mr. Weinberg said. ''I was taken with her as a friend.''

Mr. Weinberg, as with most of those interviewed, said he was convinced that Ms. Nussbaum could have never harmed her adopted children, but that she remained with Mr. Steinberg, in part, to protect them.

''Hedda is a victim,'' he said. ''She is a woman who has undergone brutalization for many years, mental and physical. But she was totally in thrall to him. And I'm sure he got her involved with drugs.'' Bandages and Dark

Glasses Others at Random House remember Ms. Nussbaum's referring to cocaine use in 1981, ''which was extremely unusual at the time,'' one said.

After the adoption of Elizabeth, Ms. Nussbaum often took the child to the office, which began to annoy her colleagues, they said. And there were increasing, unexplained absences from work, often followed by Ms. Nussbaum's appearing with bandages on her face and dark glasses.

''One day after Hedda wasn't in,'' a colleague said, ''I saw her wheeling the baby down the hall. And the baby had a cut lip, and Hedda had on sunglasses and a bandage. I just said, 'Hello.' But everybody knew she was a lady with a lot of trouble.''

After an absence from work for about a month, while her boss was on vacation, colleagues said, Ms. Nussbaum was dismissed. There was apparently talk of freelance work, but no one interviewed remembered any materializing. 'She Began to Look Terrible'

''At the office, she was able to get the rewards of a career, of helping and nurturing others,'' Mr. Weinberg said. ''Afterward, she was at home with an overbearing man who worked there, and he was there to scream and shout at her and tell her she was an idiot 24 hours a day.

''She lost that capacity for giving. And she began to look terrible. Her voice changed and became croaky, and her lips were cracked.''

Mr. Weinberg remembers that when he called Ms. Nussbaum at home, Mr. Steinberg would stand over her and tell her what to say and how to answer.

''Joel was so overbearing,'' Mr. Weinberg said. ''He'd be listening in and interrupting and telling her what to say. And then there was a point at which she wouldn't come to the phone any more.'' 'An Extraordinary Gift'

But Mr. Weinberg remained in touch, out of affection for Ms. Nussbaum and for Elizabeth, who read his poems and ''who was the most wonderful, loving creature, who could talk to you like an adult, which was an extraordinary gift.''

''This was a full human being,'' Mr. Weinberg said of Elizabeth, ''not just a person in the process.''

Every six months or so, Mr. Weinberg would visit the Steinberg apartment to pick up a small royalty check, a residue from a short period when Mr. Steinberg was his agent. When he would arrive, Mr. Weinberg said, Ms. Nussbaum ''would be in the shadows, flitting from room to room, hiding from me.''

''I would get glimpses of her, with her hair gray and her face disfigured, like some Blanche DuBois,'' he said.

Ms. Nussbaum ''needs love and help,'' Mr. Weinberg said.

''She needs to be rescued, not imprisoned,'' he added.

''Like practically everyone at Random House, Hedda was so bright and articulate,'' a colleague now at another publishing house said. ''It's what makes what she has become so much more horrible. And oh God, that poor little girl.''