FIRST EDITION : After 67 years, Reader’s Digest is planning its first stock offering.

Reader’s Digest, an American institution that has carried a distinctive mix of information, jokes and witty anecdotes into millions of homes each month for 67 years, is going public.

The magazine unveiled a plan Thursday for an initial public offering of shares in about six months. It would be pointless, however, for any of the nation’s grand acquisitors to prepare a takeover offer. The stock to be sold will have no voting rights.

The voting stock will remain closely held by trusts set up by the magazine’s conservative founders, DeWitt and Lila Wallace, who started it in a Greenwich Village basement in New York.

The couple kept particulars of their empire very private during their long, full lifetimes (they were in their 90s when they died, he in 1981 and she in 1984). Although there have been published estimates that Reader’s Digest Assn. Inc. had $1.7 billion in revenue in the fiscal year ended June 30, 1988, the corporation has never divulged that kind of information and declined again on Thursday.

That stance is about to change. When the company files a registration statement for the public offering, expected late this year or early next, it will have to start disclosing all relevant financial information under Securities and Exchange Commission rules.

The decision to go public was viewed as nothing less than “a historical event” at the magazine’s headquarters on a big estate in Pleasantville, N.Y., said spokesman Bruce Trachtenberg, who reported that the employees were “very excited” Thursday.

Reader’s Digest is published in 15 languages and has a reported circulation of 29 million worldwide, more than 16 million in the United States. For much of its life, the publication was No. 1 in U.S. magazine circulation, and it has never dropped lower than No. 3 behind TV Guide and Modern Maturity.

The company says about 95% of the magazine’s U.S. circulation comes from mail subscriptions, with the remainder sold on newsstands.

Reader’s Digest Assn. also publishes books and produces music and home video products.

Perhaps no other U.S. magazine has stirred the loyalty of its readers and the ire of its detractors more than the mighty little (5-by-7-inch) publication.

Founded in 1922, Reader’s Digest condenses articles from pieces published elsewhere for the bulk of the magazine. It was from Reader’s Digest that millions of people were introduced to various scientific findings and theories on self-improvement and entertained by dramatic tales of personal experience.

The publication made national by-words of such regular features as its “most unforgettable character” and “Life in These United States.”

The Wallaces used the magazine to espouse their favorite causes, many of which were ultraconservative and patriotic.

For instance, during the Vietnam War it inserted detachable flag decals into its U.S. edition. And a series of its articles in the early 1980s accused the World Council of Churches of aiding leftist and revolutionary causes.

One of Reader’s Digest’s better-known readers was President Ronald Reagan. His staff disclosed that an article in the magazine was the source of his assertion in 1982 press conference that Soviet agents were among the backers of the American campaign for a nuclear weapons freeze.

When the magazine turned 50 in 1972, it published a booklet of testimonials from many world leaders, including then-President Richard Nixon, West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos.

That year the Wallaces were awarded the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Medal of Freedom.

Millions of American citizens have looked to Reader’s Digest to refuel their optimism about life. Now its fans can look forward to owning a piece of the company.

The corporation itself will not sell stock, it noted. The DeWitt trusts hold a “substantial part” of the non-voting stock and are expected to offer a major part of the stock in the public offering, a company executive said.

The establishment of a public market for trading the shares will benefit the Wallaces’ favorite charities, which also hold a major share of the company’s non-voting stock. Those charities--including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center--may sell some or all of their stock, noted Vice President Carole M. Howard.

At the same time, the company stressed that the plan will assure the publication’s independence by keeping close control of the voting stock.

Reader’s Digest said it also is changing its employee profit sharing plan to permit annual contributions of previously unissued voting stock. A total of 20% of the voting stock is expected to end up in the profit sharing plan by the year 2000.

A combination of tax laws and Mrs. Wallace’s will require that the two Wallace-Reader’s Digest funds reduce their holdings of voting stock in the company to 50% by 2000. No details were offered concerning how the funds would dispose of surplus voting stock. But Grune said the funds intend to continue to hold 50% of the voting stock thereafter.