June 20, 1982

A tenant leader gave a crystal ball to the county's Rent Guidelines Board last week and even the landlords, who had been hissed and booed during a chaotic three-hour public meeting, laughed. The board had already announced that it had no information on which to base rents for the year beginning Oct. 1 because the state ran out of postage money when approval of the budget was delayed in Albany and could not send questionnaires to landlords. The decision on rents for 58,000 tenants in 18 communities in the county under the Emergency Tenant Protection Act was to be made by July 1, but the board will not be able to meet the deadline. The board is also unsure of its own makeup. Three of its members are lame ducks whose terms have expired but who have been neither reappointed nor replaced. The term of one member, Daniel J. O'Brien, expired Dec. 31, 1978; since then, Mr. O'Brien said, ''I sat, and I sat and I sat,'' but the County Board of Legislators, which must replace him, has not acted.

Britain won the war last week, but what kind of peace was in store for the Falkland Islands remained unsettled. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher proclaimed victory for British sovereignty and ''the British way of life'' and ordered her colonial governor back to the islands. In that case, Argentine President Leopoldo Galtieri insisted, ''There will be no security or definite peace.'' But the President himself soon became a political casualty. Thousands of Argentines, humiliated by losing (and furious at being misled by military communiques), rioted below the presidential balcony, chanting ''Treason! Treason!'' The military forced out General Galtieri as army commander in chief and replaced him in the ruling junta with Gen. Cristino Nicolaides, a hard-liner. Gen. Alfredo Saint Jean, the Interior Minister, became interim President.

The big names took control of the leader boards today in the third round of the United States Open. Tom Watson, who says he wants to win this championship more than anything else, and Bill Rogers, who tied for second last year and then went on to win the British Open and the World Series of Golf, tied for the lead after three rounds, setting up what should be a splendid confrontation in Sunday's finale. Watson shot a four-under-par 68 and Rogers a 69 to stand at 212 for 54 holes of the Pebble Beach golf links. Two shots behind them were David Graham, the defender; George Burns, who tied Rogers last year; Scott Simpson, winner of one tournament in four years on the tour, and Bruce Devlin, who shared the first-day lead Thursday and held it alone Friday. And three shots back was Jack Nicklaus, licking his chops at the prospect of becoming the first man to win a fifth United States Open. Devlin is better known these days as a television commentator than a player. He missed the cut in his last tournament and he plays seldom. In eight tournaments this season, he has made the cut only four times and has won $2,932, hardly enough for expenses. After two good rounds of 70, 69, Devlin shot three bogeys today and not a single birdie.

WHEN they were infants, Barbara and Susan were adopted by the same family. They grew up as sisters in Upper Nyack, N.Y. Barbara, now Mrs. Richards, is 34 years old and lives in Valley Cottage, N.Y. She does not want to know her biological mother. ''My life couldn't be improved by finding her, by meeting this total stranger,'' she says, and a search would mean ''nothing but confusion.'' Nevertheless, a year ago, Mrs. Richards helped her sister - now Mrs. Begg - to write to an adoptee search group. The 30-year-old Mrs. Begg, who lives in Mahwah, said she ''always wanted to know'' about her birth family, and adds: ''I started searching officially last year just to find out who I looked like, what kind of history I had, why I was given up.'' The attitudes of Mrs. Richards and Mrs. Begg exemplify the deep and often emotional division that marks the debate among adoptees, adoptive parents, birth parents, lawyers and adoption agencies about whether to open adoption records.

Lebanese political leaders continued their efforts today to convince the Palestine Liberation Organization to lay down its arms in return for Lebanese and American assurances that the Israeli Army will not move into the Palestinian-Moslem stronghold in West Beirut. But despite a flurry of meetings between Philip C. Habib, the special American envoy, and President Elias Sarkis and other Lebanese politicians, there was doubt whether a political arrangement could be worked out. (An Israeli military spokesman said five Syrians were killed and three Israelis wounded in the first clash since a cease-fire eight days ago, Reuters reported. Ihe incident occurred near Karun Lake at the southern end of the Bekaa Valley.)