March 18, 1981

Because of a dispute over price, a plan by the Standard Oil Company (Ohio) to buy $750 million worth of coal and mining facilities from the United States Steel Corporation has collapsed, the companies announced yesterday. In December, the two had announced that U.S. Steel would sell Sohio three mines producing low-sulfur coal and 888 million tons of Appalachian coal reserves for an estimated $750 million. Neither company explained why the deal collapsed, beyond stating that they could not reach an agreement on price. Neverthless, such a price for coal in the ground had seemed high to coal industry officials and Wall Street analysts. The companies had originally hoped to come to a definitive agreement by the end of 1980.

Michel Guerard, the high priest of nouvelle cuisine, is experiencing a minor loss of faith: What was intended as a breath of fresh air, he says, is inducing claustrophobia. ''Today, everywhere you go in France, you find the same menus, the same dishes with even the same names, the same flavors,'' he said during an interview in his office on the Avenue de l'Opera. ''There is nothing original.'' When, a little more than a decade ago, Mr. Guerard and his fellow chefs Paul Bocuse, Alain Chapel and Jean and Pierre Troisgros popularized the idea of simpler, less rich French cooking, they started on the way to worldwide influence. Today nouvelle restaurants thrive all over France, Britain, West Germany and the United States. The food many of them serve, Mr. Guerard insists, lacks dignity, nobility, pride and nuance.

A FRESH perspective on women's roles, job opportunities and sex stereotypes is coming these days from the Ford Foundation, and it is a change that could shake up traditional thinking well beyond the world of philanthropy. ''We're applying what I call a 'feminist lens' in reviewing everything Ford undertakes,'' said Susan V. Berresford, chief program officer. This means scrutinizing 300 aid projects in the United States and 25 other countries to determine their impact on women, particularly the poor. Closer to home, the review has extended to Ford's own staffing policies, and some innovations are already in place. Item: On the assumption that child-rearing should be a shared responsibility, Ford recently modified parental leave, permitting fathers to take up to eight weeks of paid leave to spend time with newborn or adopted youngsters. Such practices prevail in Norway and Sweden, but Ford officials believe this is a ''first'' here.

Administration officials said today that President Reagan was considering a request to Congress to repeal the embargo on military aid to Argentina. The officials made the statement after Mr. Reagan met with Gen. Roberto Viola, who has been designated to become Argentina's president on March 29. Mr. Reagan said that he had a ''good discussion'' with the Argentine leader and that he looked forward ''to efforts by both Governments to further improve our relations.'' ''I have extended to General Viola my best wishes for his tenure as president,'' Mr. Reagan said. Earlier today, General Viola met informally with members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Capitol Hill, where he was said to have pledged to make more of an effort to identify some of the 6,000 people reported to have been arrested or abducted by Argentine security forces.

Last-minute efforts to overcome a deadlock in the coal labor negotiations here failed late this afternoon, and leaders of the United Mine Workers of America sent the union's 39-member bargaining council home. With that action, a strike on March 27 is unavoidable, union leaders said. The almost certain walkout of 160,000 union miners in the coal fields of Appalachia and the Middle West was set in motion at 4:30 P.M. today, when officials of the Bituminous Coal Operators Association did not respond to the union's latest proposal. Sam Church Jr., who became the mine workers' president 16 months ago, called negotiators for the industry at 3 P.M. and gave them an hour and a half to arrange to negotiate over the union's latest proposal. It had been made after bargaining stalled before dawn today. No further bargaining sessions were scheduled.