May 6, 1982

International Britain is exploring new ideas to halt the battle for the Falklands, according to Foreign Secretary Francis Pym. Addressing an agitated House of Commons, Mr. Pym said that the ideas included an early cease-fire but that no truce was possible without a withdrawal of Argentine troops from the islands, a condition that Buenos Aires has repeatedly rejected unless it is coupled with recognition of Argentine sovereignty over the islands. Responding to a question, Mr. Pym said that one possibility was the creation of ''a United Nations trusteeship'' in the archipelago. (Page A1, Column 6.) Argentina devalued the peso by 17 percent as part of a series of economic moves designed to spur exports and help finance the war against Britain. Buenos Aires said that about 800 survivors had been rescued from the cruiser General Belgrano. (A16:1.)

C. Arnholt Smith's financial empire has officially disappeared. With the filing of final liquidation papers in a Nevada court on Tuesday, the ill-starred Westgate-California Corporation, which had struggled along for eight years under Chapter 10 of the Federal Bankruptcy Act, vanished from corporate rosters. Checks were mailed Monday to some 6,000 persons who held the two million outstanding shares of the company, in keeping with a previously announced plan to distribute the nearly $62.5 million in assets. Shareholders were paid at a rate of $28.25 a share, more than some had originally paid for their stock.

''The President of the United States will endorse and support this proposal.

Mary Ann Walker's scrapbook is filled with the yellowed photographs and clippings that chronicle her childhood - the nurses, the sunny pink nursery high above East 72d Street and the doting couple who adopted her in March 1936: James J. Walker, New York City's flamboyant former Mayor, and his wife, the actress Betty Compton. Newspaper accounts at the time referred to Mary Ann as ''one of the luckiest babies in the world,'' a ''blue-eyed, curly-haired tot bubbling with a genial disposition - to match her father's.'' To Mr. Walker, a father for the first time at 55, she was simply ''the loveliest little lady anyone ever cast eyes on,'' and he vowed that she would be ''a normal American child.'' But like many sons and daughters of celebrities, Mary Ann Walker never really felt ''normal.'' For years, she struggled to extricate herself from the lengthy shadow cast by Jimmy Walker, who as Mayor of New York from 1926 to 1932 came to symbolize the gaiety and exuberance of the Jazz Age. And like many of the adopted, she discovered she knew nothing about herself when she emerged.

The White House and Senate Republican leaders agreed on a budget compromise, and it was approved hours later by the Senate Budget Committee. The plan would increase taxes by $95 billion over three years. It envisions a deficit of $105 billion for the fiscal year 1983, $70 billion for 1984 and $42 billion for 1985. (Page A1.) Earlier, at a House Ways and Means Committee hearing, Treasury Secretary Donald T. Regan and House Democrats discussed possible tax increases. (D19.) Paul A. Volcker, chairman of the Federal Reserve, came close to supporting a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced Federal budget. His testimony before a House panel and his remarks in an interview later marked an unexpected shift, although he warned against allowing the amendment to divert attention from solving the current budget crisis. (D1.)