September 2, 1981

An article yesterday on the import- ing of antiquities did not fully specify the United States Customs policy. Cus- toms officials said they would continue to seize objects and prosecute art deal- ers in cases involving direct violations of American laws, such as undervalua- tion and misdescription. They say they are still debating a policy on material deemed stolen under foreign cultural property laws but brought into the United States in accordance with American laws and regulations.

At the end of a long night of political stories, before he put the last cigar to rest, Stanley M. Friedman remembered a line that had been recurring in his mind lately. ''We're the two smartest men in politics,'' Mr. Friedman recalled City Comptroller Harrison J. Goldin saying to him a few years ago. ''Why can't we get along?'' The answer is simple, according to Mr. Friedman, the Bronx Democratic chairman and a former Deputy Mayor. ''I lived with him for four years under Mayor Beame,'' Mr. Friedman said. ''He has all the attributes of a masterful politician: He is clever, unscrupulous, vicious, articulate and for his own survival at all costs.''

The owners of the two buildings whose front walls collapsed near the Port Authority Bus Terminal Monday had filed suit in September 1979 against the authority and its contractors, charging negligent blasting in the area over more than four years and seeking $1.75 million in damages, the owners' lawyer said yesterday. The City Buildings Department ordered the demolition of a third building at the site where one person died and four were injured because of hazardous conditions. The suit by the owners of the buildings in the collapse contended that on various occasions between December 1976 and March 1980, explosives used in excavating and other work for the terminal extension, tunnel and roadways had damaged foundations, walls, cellars and other parts of 567, 569, 568, 570 and 574 Ninth Avenue and 355 West 41st Street, according to the laywer, Harold J. McLaughlin.

The Reagan Administration has told the Soviet Union that any future arms-control accords will have to include onsite inspection and other direct means of verification, according to Administration officials. This message was conveyed to the Soviet charge d'affaires in Washington, Aleksandr A. Bessmertnykh, by Eugene V. Rostow, director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, in a meeting on Aug. 21. Moscow has generally opposed such demands in the past on the ground that they constituted intrusion into Soviet society and a pretext for spying. Awaiting Soviet Response A high-ranking official said the Administration was now waiting for a reply to the proposal to begin informal meetings immediately in Washington or elsewhere on the subject of verification.

Factory orders for new goods rose 1.3 percent in July from June, the biggest jump this year, the Commerce Department reported today But the increase was concentrated in aircraft and related parts, with many industries not sharing in the gain. Factory inventories also rose substantially during the month as shipments fell for the first time in more than a year, the report said. Orders for durable goods - cars, furniture and other items expected to last at least three years - accounted for the entire orders gain, rising 2.5 percent. Orders for nondurable goods, however, were virtually unchanged, the report said.