May 22, 1982

The establishment of a secure and expanding beachhead on East Falkland Island was the primary objective of Britain's amphibious operation today. The exercise may, however, be preliminary to landings elsewhere on the island, analysts said. Scorpion light tanks, Rapier surface-to-air missiles and artillery were reported to have been moved into the beachhead at Port San Carlos in preparation for an offensive. But military opinion is that the beachhead cannot be exploited to its fullest until Harrier fighter jets of the Royal Air Force are established ashore.

Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar said today that on the eve of the breakdown of his effort to resolve the Falkland crisis, Argentina and Britain both stiffened their positions. The final texts from the two Governments, he told the Security Council, ''did not reflect the progress which had been achieved'' inn his mediation with Argentine and British representatives. Mr. Perez de Cuellar described the major areas of agreement he thought had been reached in his 30 sessions with the two negotiators and said only four points, seemingly minor, were not settled. He did not spell out how the written texts he received from Buenos Aires and London differed from the tentative accord he thought had been reached.

The Republican-controlled Senate tonight adopted a $784 billion budget for the fiscal year 1983. It projects a $116 billion deficit, largest in the nation's history. The vote was 49 to 43. Just before passage of the document, Senate leaders led a move to reject an amendment that would have produced a balanced budget by 1985 through a sharp rise in taxes and huge cuts in military spending and benefit programs, including Social Security. ''Don't just keep saying you're for a balanced budget,'' Senator Dan Quayle, Republican of Indiana, told his colleagues. ''This is it.''

Consumer prices, checked by a steep decline in energy costs, rose only two-tenths of 1 percent in April, the Labor Department said today. The April report reflected a continuation of the sharp slowing in the rate of inflation over the past seven months. Last month's increase was accounted for by higher food and housing costs. It reversed a decline of three-tenths of 1 percent in March, which was the first drop in the Consumer Price Index in almost 17 years, but did not change the progress on inflation. For the past 12 months, the index is up 6.6 percent, the lowest 12-month increase since 1978.

President Reagan has approved a new military strategy in which United States forces need not engage those of the Soviet Union on all fronts simultaneously if a war breaks out, his national security adviser said today. Instead, the adviser, William P. Clark, speaking in broad, general terms, described a strategy that is designed to meet the Soviet military challenge by establishing priorities for United States military commitments, such as to allies in Europe, and for providing assistance to regional allies in defending themselves. The new military doctrine now endorsed by Mr. Reagan represents a significant modification of a much more embracing strategy stated by Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger. The national security adviser drew from an eight-page National Security Decision Memorandum approved this week by Mr. Reagan. He said that the ultimate objective of the Administration was to ''convince the leadership of the Soviet Union to turn their attention inward,'' suggesting that would avert Soviet threats to American interests.