September 21, 1981

Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. said today that the list of 50 senators opposed to the sale of Awacs radar surveillance planes to Saudi Arabia was ''replete with soft spots'' and that he could name a dozen senators who were ''ready to reconsider'' their position. Mr. Haig contended that once senators had been fully briefed on all aspects of the Administration's case, the chances for approval of the sale would improve. In Jerusalem, Prime Minister Menachem Begin said that there was ''no link'' between the proposed sale of the Awacs planes and his agreement with President Reagan on an arrangement for strategic cooperation. There have been suggestions in Washington that Congressional rejection of the deal would disrupt the United States-Israeli plan. (Page A6.)

International An emergency meeting in Warsaw was held by Poland's leaders, the second in four days, and when it ended they issued a vaguely worded statement saying that they were prepared to take urgent measures. The Polish press agency said that the authorities were preparing major moves, but did not indicate what they might be. (Page A1, Column 6.) The execution of 149 dissidents in Iran was r eported by Iran's official media. According to a newspaper repo rt, the head of th e the Islamic revolutionary courts said that armed demonstrators may face afiring squad at the ''scene of their crimes'' in the futur e. (A1:4.)

The chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said yesterday that within a year he would seek a 25-cent increase in the $1 tolls on the Triborough Bridge and four other East River crossings to help finance a new plan to pour billions of dollars into the region's mass-transit system. The improvement plan, costing $6.7 billion, calls for the agency to purchase hundreds of new subway cars, commuter rail cars and buses, as well as to make numerous other maintenance improvements over the next five years. Approval by the 15-member M.T.A. board is expected this week. The plan proposed by the authority's chairman, Richard Ravitch, relies heavily on the agency's success in an uncertain municipal bond market. Citing high interest rates, several bond experts, including Felix G. Rohatyn, the chairman of the Municipal Assistance Corporation, have called for the M.T.A. to cut back on its spending plans.

Amid a sense that the economic and political situation was heading for a new crisis, the Government held a second emergency session in four days today and afterward issued a vaguely worded statement that it was prepared to take urgent measures. Reporting on the meeting of the Council of Ministers, or Cabinet, the official press agency, P.A.P., said the central authorities were preparing major moves but gave no indication of what those moves might be. Local mayors and administrative heads from the provinces also attended the m eeting. Political Climate Worsens In recent days, as the political climate has worsened and the economic shortages have grown ever more severe, there has been speculation that the Government may ultimately be forced to declare a state of emergency, a step that would effectively mean the imposition of martial law.

Candidates in tomorrow's primary in New York City, frustrated by a 12-day delay and uncertain whether voters would be discouraged by the judicial intervention that caused the delay, wound up their last weekend of campaigning yesterday with a flurry of appearances. Meanwhile, as the City Council hurried to meet today's deadline for submission of demographic and voting statistics to the United States Justice Department, one of the plaintiffs who won postponement of the Council races said that a defense of the redistricting plan announced Saturday by the Council's attorney, would ''never succeed.'' ''He has not discovered something new,'' said Gabriel Kaimowitz, an attorney for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, which was one of the plaintiffs. Campaigning among the browsers at the Fifth Avenue Book Fair, Mayor Koch was presented with a framed copy of the fair's official poster, and he told a cheering crowd: ''I am going to take this back to Gracie Mansion and it will be there for at least eight years.'' Arms Aloft in Crowd The Mayor then went to the Third Avenue Street Festival, where he strode from 68th Street to 92d Street, his arms aloft and thumbs cocked. He asked the festival crowd his familiar refrain: ''How'm I'mdoing?''