October 3, 1981

Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. met in New York today with Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, and a State Department spokesman said later that United States ''assistance'' would be necessary well into the 1990's for what was called ''the support'' of five Saudi Awacs aircraft. The statement was worded differently from one made by Mr. Haig yesterday in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Mr. Haig told the committee that because of what he called a shortage of Saudi air crews and technicians, ''there will be an American presence in the aircraft and on the ground well into the 1990's.'' Department of Defense estimates of the time necessary to train crews for Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft are much less than the more than 10 years suggested by Mr. Haig's testimony yesterday. Training Time Varies A published United States Air Force statement said that about 300 NATO airmen who began training in July at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma to operate NATO Awacs were in programs that ''vary from 3 to 55 weeks, with an average time of about 4 months.''

1 BOMBER By RICHARD HALLORAN Speci al to the New York Times WASHINGTON, Oct. 2 - President Reagan, announcing his long-awaited proposals to revitalize the nation's strategic nuclear deterrent today, swept aside the much-debated plan for a ''shell game'' of MX missiles shuttled among shelters in the Western deserts. He said that he intended to base the new intercontinental missile in existing silos that will be super-hardened. The President also revived the B-1 long-range bomber, canceled by President Carter, and proposed building 100 President's remarks on weapons plan and background statement, page 12. of the aircraft. And he told reporters at the White House that more powerful and accurate nuclear missiles would be acquired for Trident submarines, to strengthen the least vulnerable leg of the triad of weapons that make up the strategic deterrent.

President Reagan's decision today on modernizing the American strategic nuclear arsenal is based on an apparent contradiction: There is a continued belief that land-based missiles are vulnerable to a surprise Soviet attack, yet the programs it proposes to set in motion will do virtually nothing to reduce that theoretical vulnerability. According t o Pentagon experts, the President's p lan to build MX missiles, place them in existing silos and pour more concrete to harden them against blast represents a giant step aw ay from a solution. To them, safety can come only from mobility, and Mr. Reagan has scrapped that approach for now. If land-based missiles are vulnerable, they are so because, as Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger himself said at his confirmation hearings, their locations are fixed, detectable by Soviet satellites and capable of being struck by accurate Soviet missiles.

New York State's populations of deer, geese, beaver, wild turkey and several other species are growing so fast that some have become nuisances, wildlife officials say. Even coyotes and moose have been spotted for the first time in many years. The number of deer is estimated at 650,000, the highest in history, the officials say, which has led the state to take advantage of the hunting season to cut that figure back. And increasing numbers of such smaller animals as otters and raccoons have led to a renewal of the trapping industry.

A new leak has been discovered in the tubing of a steam generator at the Indian Point 3 nuclear plant - one of 17 in the country where such tubing has been affected by rust. The leak has delayed plans by the Power Authority of the State of New York to put the plant back into service after several weeks of routine maintenance. The authority, which said it was conducting inspections of the plant's steam generator system, said yesterday that it did not know how long the plant would be out of service. Indian Point 3 and the adjacent Indian Point 2, both in the Westchester County village of Buchanan, are owned by the Consolidated Edison Company. Indian Point 2 has also been identified as a plant with a rust problem.