January 23, 1981

The Chrysler Corporation and its Chrysler Canada Ltd. subsidiary are caught between conflicting demands from American and Canadian authorities in the fight to stave off corporate bankruptcy. At issue is an agreement between the Canadian Government and Chrysler Canada, reached last May, requiring the subsidiary to invest $1 billion (Canadian funds) in Canadian facilities between 1980 and 1985. The Canadian dollar is worth about 84 cents in United States currency.

Because of a typographical error, the short-interest table in Business Day yesterday incorrectly stated the position of the International Business Machines Corporation. The correct figure is 557,558 shares.

Rupert Murdoch, the publisher of The New York Post and other newspapers around the world, has completed a conditional agreement to buy The Times of London and its affiliated publications. The purchase by Mr. Murdoch, a 49-year-old Australian, depends upon his reaching new trade union agreements within the next three weeks, and is subject to Government approval. The Canadian-based Thomson Organization, which is selling The Times because it has chronically lost money, said that its agreement with Mr. Murdoch included detailed guarantees that he would do nothing to lower the tone or character of the 195-year-old newspaper, which is widely regarded as one of the finest in the world. Included in the sale are The Times's sister publication, The Sunday Times, and three respected weeklies - The Times Literary Supplement, The Times Education Supplement and The Times Higher Education Supplement. At a news conference in London today, Mr. Murdoch said: ''I am not seeking to acquire these papers in order to change them into something entirely different. Whatever proposals for progress may be developed, there will be no fundamental change in the characteristics.''

''MOUNTAINS are the beginning and end of all natural scenery,'' John Ruskin observed in the 1800's. In their slopes and valleys are found ''the noblest and best ground given to man,'' Ruskin continued. ''In these districts only, art of the highest kind seems possible.'' These words of the English art and social critic inspired another Briton, Ralph Whitehead, who set out in 1902 seeking such surroundings of unbridled scenic beauty in which to start an artsand-crafts colony. Whitehead found his dream in the eastern Catskill Mountains in Woodstock, N.Y., which today is two hours from Manhattan by car or bus and not far from half a dozen of the state's best skiing and cold-weather recreation areas. Woodstock is perhaps best known for its summer festivals, plays and easy life style. And English socialists, independent artisans, abstract and landscape artists, folk and rock musicians, beatniks and hippies have all helped give Woodstock a certain rebel reputation. But, on a cold, crisp winter weekend, the town seems at peace with itself, and offers opportunities to relax dreamily before a crackling fire in a country inn, to browse, without the summer's crowds, in art galleries, antiques stores and boutiques, to Metropolitan Baedeker amble through snowy woods, to ski downhill or cross-country, and to go sledding, snowmobiling, ice skating and hiking, with or without snowshoes.

A record $3 billion in new cash flowed into the nation's money market mutual funds in the week ended Wednesday, lifting their total assets to $81.7 billion, the Investment Company Institute reported yesterday. The aggregate assets of the 98 funds were the highest ever, and represented an increase of nearly $7 billion since the beginning of the year, according to the institute, a trade group for mutual funds.