January 17, 1981

The United States sent to Iran early this morning the final language of an accord that, if accepted by Teheran, could end more than 14 months of captivity for 52 Americans. United States officials said yesterday that a formal announcement of an agreement could be made today and the hostages could be freed tomorrow. But Jody Powell, the White House spokesman, stressed that, despite several optimistic signs, it was premature to say that an accord had been reached. ''It is everyone's hope that there will be an agreement,'' he said after hectic round-the-clock talks here and in Algiers. ''But it is not a certainty. I am not playing with words here when I am saying to you that we don't have an agreement. We don't.''

Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, the fiery opponent of what she calls the British occupation of Northern Ireland and a former member of the British Parliament, was shot and seriously wounded this morning by armed men who burst into her home near a village 30 miles west of Belfast. Her husband, Michael, was also seriously wounded in the attack, which the police said was the work of a Protestant paramilitary group. Three men were taken into custody near the house just after the attack, but by this evening the police had not disclosed their names. Mrs. McAliskey, who is known abroad as Bernadette Devlin, is a leading republican campaiger in Northern Ireland, and the attack sent shock waves through the province and the rest of Britain.

The Carter Administration set off a day of frenzy in international banking circles today. Officials and bankers in Washington and Algiers worked through the day on details for the transfer of billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets if Teheran agrees to last-minute American proposals for the release of the hostages. President Carter ordered an exchange transaction of more than $900 million worth of gold with Britain so that the United States would have the gold in the Bank of England for ultimate transfer to Iran. He also ordered the sale of Iranian-owned Treasury securities in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York so that the money could be transferred to Iran. An Air Force plane ferried American Government officials and representatives of American banks and the Bank of England, which would participate in the financial arrangements for resolving the hostage crisis, to Algeria. Twenty-five representatives of a dozen major banks were summoned to an all-day meeting with top Administration officials at the State Department to discuss unresolved differences with Iran and details of the fund transfer that would be necessary to carry out the agreement the Administration hopes to reach with Iran for release of the hostages.

President Carter took issue today with a Presidential commission's recommendation that the Federal Government encourage migration of people from Northern industrial cities to the South and the West. ''I disagree with the implication in the commission's recommendation that the Federal Government should play a role in facilitating the population trend from the Frost Belt to the Sun Belt,'' the President said in a statement issued by the White House. ''We cannot abandon our older urban areas.'' The President's Commission for a National Agenda for the 80's, which Mr. Carter appointed in 1979, met with him today and gave him a final copy of its report.

Mayor Koch yesterday announced his budget plans for the next fiscal year, and, as expected, they called for an expansion of critical municipal services and virtually no additions to the financial discomfort that for years has been a way of life in New York City. The Mayor's program included the hiring of 1,300 additional officers for the Police Department and the transit and Housing Authority police. This was among many details of the budget that have been reported during the last week. Over the next year and a half, Mr. Koch plans to add 445 sanitation workers, 375 firefighters, 336 correction officers and hundreds of new teachers in certain schools, even though the Board of Educa- Text of budget letter, page 28. tion stands to lose a total of 600 teachers as the result of declining enrollments.