February 13, 1982

President Reagan ordered an investigation today into why five American advisers in El Salvador apparently violated United States policy by carrying M-16 rifles in what may have been a combat zone. A videotape broadcast Thursday by the Cable News Network shows several men identified by the camera crew as Americans in civilian clothes carrying M-16 rifles and .45-caliber pistols. According t o the rules for United States advisers in El Salvador described in a State Department background paper last March, the advisers are allowed to carry only side arms, which they may use only in self- defense. An official at the United States Embassy in San Salvador confirmed that an adviser or advisers - he was unclear how many were involved - carried M-16 rifles ''in insecure territory.'' He said the Americans were not engaged in aggressive acts.

The United States Gold Commission recommended today that the Government mint a new gold ''coin'' that would be sold in competition with coins made by Canada, South Africa and other countries. The commission, in a 13-2 vote, proposed the creation of what the members in their discussion had dubbed ''The American Eagle,'' although it would not be used as legal tender, despite its designation as a coin. The Eagle would be similar to the Government's existing gold medallion, but would be exempt from capital gains and sales taxes. That might make it more popular as an investment vehicle than the current medallion, which has not sold well.

President Reagan, bowing to opposition from civil rights groups and several Democratic Senators, today withdrew his nomination of William M. Bell for the chairmanship of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He announced his intention to nominate an Education Department official for the job. A White H ou se official said that Mr. Bell, owner and the sole employee of a Detroit job-recruiting concern, had asked that his name be withd rawn. Several members of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Com mittee had said he was unqualified and that they would oppose his co nfirmation.

President Reagan's proposed budget has drawn highly unusual public attacks from West European finance ministers, central bank chiefs and many private economists, who assert that the big projected deficits will further depress their own economies. President Reagan formally announced his budget last weekend, and since then Finance Minister Jacques Delors of France, Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Geoffrey Howe of Britain, Finance Minister Willie de Clercq of Belgium and Karl Otto Pohl, president of the West German central bank, have all called it, in effect, a threat to the world's economic health. They have urged Mr. Reagan and Congress to reduce the $91.5 billion deficit projected for the fiscal year that begins Oct.1. Effects Already Being Fe lt Indeed, the complex economic mechanism by which a big United States budget deficit tends to raise interest rates and unemployment in Western Europe and throughout the world is already starting to operate: Since President Reagan made his budget proposals, American interest rates have gone up and the value of the dollar, in turn, has risen sharply against other major currencies as investors have transferred funds into dollar investments. Senior officials at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, along with many private European bankers and economists, say another large United States deficit, coming on top of this year's expected $99 billion deficit, will keep interest rates high throughout the world.

A Rutgers University building whose occupants were found by the state to have an excessive number of cancers was closed Thursday night after air samples yielded increased levels of a hormone suspected of causing cancer. Earlier monitoring had found sharply lower readings. Dr. Edward J. Bloustein, president of Rutge rs, said he had ordered that classes in the building, Smith Hall, be suspended until further testing by the state and Federal governments determined its safety. The hormone, an estrogenic substance called estradiol benzoate, was found in the air of five of seven rooms tested last September by the Federal National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The substance is known to cause cancer in mice and is suspected of causing uterine cancer in women, a report from the institute to Rutgers said. Eight cases of cancer have been detected among those who regularly work at Smith Hall.