April 17, 1982

The vanguard of the British battle fleet is less than a week's sailing time from the Falkland Islands, military sources indicated today. The sources said that the last warships of the task force left the rendezvous point off Ascension Island, in midocean between Africa and South America, sometime early Thursday. Other elements of the main British flotilla, which consists of about 25 ships, were reported to have left the area as early as last Monday or Tuesday, headed toward the South Atlantic. It appears that the fleet is making about 18 or 19 knots, which means it will take the ships about seven or eight days to complete the voyage from Ascension to the South Atlantic, where nuclearpowered submarines of the Royal Navy are enforcing a blockade in a 200-mile zone around the Falklands.

President Reagan said today that his Administration's budget negotiations with Congress were ''approaching a climactic stage,'' and he promised a ''constructive and conciliatory spirit'' in deciding whether to compromise on his economic program. ''We must join together to bring down deficits, bring down interest rates and revive the economy,'' Mr. Reagan told a group of editors and broadcasters from the Southeast in what White House Reagan remarks are on page 9. aides interpreted as yet another conciliatory signal to Congress that he might be prepared to shift his position on the budget. The next budget negotiation session between the White House and Republican and Democratic Congressional leaders is scheduled for Sunday afternoon, and what aides said would be a final session is scheduled for Tuesday.

Prime Minister Menachem Begin received a letter today from President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and was officially described as satisfied and pleased by the message. The Prime Minister's press secretary, Uri Porat, said Mr. Begin believed Egypt and Israel would be able to resolve their differences and ''there is no reason to reconsider the Israeli Government's resolution to complete the withdrawal or evacuation on time.'' The optmistic statement, which came in a flurry of diplomatic efforts to ease Egyptian-Israeli tensions, represented an abrupt shift in the mood from earlier in the week, when some Israeli officials were talking of postponing the withdrawal from Sinai because of what they called Egyptian violations of the treaty. The pullout is scheduled for April 25.

Under pressure from farmers, the Reagan Administration has agreed to hold talks with the Soviet Union on grain sales, the first since the imposition of martial law in Poland last December. The announcement of the meeting, to take place in Paris on May 21 and 22, was made today by Senator Bob Dole, Republican of Kansas, and Senator Roger W. Jepsen, Republican of Iowa. They called it ''a vital and necessary step toward restoring normal grain trade relations between the two countries and in strengthening United States farm prices.'' Administration officials took a less dramatic view: They said that under the current Soviet-American grain supply agreement, which is to expire Sept. 30, the two sides are supposed to hold twice-a-year consultations.

The handling of the Falkland crisis by the United States Government has provoked deep resentment in Britain. The Argentines have also been critical of the United States, charging that it was favoring Britain. But a broad cross section of Britons have been offended by what they feel is the lack of more overt support by senior American officials, including President Reagan and Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. Perhaps the greatest outrage has been directed at Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, the delegate to the United Nations, for attending a dinner at the Argentine Embassy on April 2, the day of the Argentine seizure of the Falkland Islands.