May 13, 1981

Missiles were fired from Syrian territory today at Israeli reconnaissance aircraft over Lebanon, the Israeli military command announced. The missiles missed their targets, according to an Israeli spokesman, and the planes returned safely to base. In Damascus, a Syrian military spokesman said that Syrian forces inside Lebanon had shot down an Israeli reconnaissance plane. The spokesman did not use the word missile in describing the Syrian action. (Page A16.)

Dragged down by sinking auto sales, the nation's retail sales fell by 1 percent in April, the first monthly decline in 11 months, the Commerce Department reported today. With the single exception of auto sales, however, total retail sales rose nine-tenths of 1 percent in April compared with March, reflecting strong Easter purchases in the first half of the month. The major downward influence in April - auto sales - was in the same category that pushed up total retail sales in March by fourtenths of 1 percent compared with February. During March, the auto manufacturers offered price rebates to stimulate their sales.

The New York City Police Department is now training all its officers and detectives for situations they might encounter if they are in a bar when a holdup occurs. The program is a direct result of the murder of an off-duty police officer during the robbery of a Queens tavern last January, but there have been at least six fatal shootings in 10 years of city police officers in bar holdups. For the new training program, the department created a simulated tavern, which serves nothing stronger than weak tea, at its outdoor range near City Island in the Bronx. Called ''Bubbles' Place,'' after a firearms instructor with that nickname, the ''bar'' is being used for role-playing exercises that are then discussed by small groups of police personnel.

John S. Samuels 3d, his financial empire in apparent disarray, said yesterday that he would resign as chairman of the board of the New York City Opera. At least for the time being, he will retain the chairmanships of the City Center of Music and Drama and the Lincoln Center Theater Company at the Vivian Beaumont Theater. His successor as chairman of the opera board will be Robert W. Wilson, a 54-yearold private investor. Mr. Samuels, 47, emerged from obscurity to become a powerful figure on the New York performing-arts scene in the mid-1970's. But recently his business empire, based on coal, has suffered severe reverses.

New York State's highest court ruled today that the state could not prohibit the use of children in portrayals of sexual activity in books, films, photographs or plays unless it could prove that the resulting materials were legally obscene. By requiring a finding of obscenity, the 5-to-2 decision by the Court of Appeals would make it considerably more difficult to obtain convictions in child pornography cases. The court struck down a portion of a 1977 law that made it illegal to produce, promote or sell materials that showed children in sexual activity whether the materials had been adjudged obscene or not. Such a prohibition, the court said, would ''prohibit the promotion of materials which are traditionally entitled to Constitutional protection from government interference under the First Amendment.''