June 25, 1982

Although the arrest of Japanese businessmen by the Federal Bureau of Investigation this week set off a furor, the acquisition of trade secrets by legal and illegal means has always been part of doing business in Silicon Valley, the center of the American electronics industry. In the pressure cooker atmosphere of this area, where product life cycles are rarely more than two years, success or failure can turn on the difference of a few weeks in product introduction dates. Add to that a clannish atmosphere in which most executives have at one time worked with one another, a lack of public scrutiny until recent years and an endlessly migrating middle management and technical staff, and all the ingredients are in place for industrial intelligence, and at times espionage. What seems to distinguish the Japa- Mitsubishi pulled back from its denial that it had conspired to steal information from I.B.M. Page D3. nese case, according to Silicon Valley executives, is the size of the payments, involving hundreds of thousands of dollars, for International Business Machines computer secrets, bought via Glenmar Associates, an F.B.I. front that acted as a consulting firm. Also unusual were the participation of Federal law enforcement authorities and the fact that it took place in the ''systems'' business rather than in computer parts, such as semiconductors.

Leaders of the fight for an equal rights amendment officially conceded defeat today. But they vowed to continue the struggle for equality of women by electing their backers to state legislatures and by suing corporations that practice sexual discrimination. ''We've just begun to fight,'' said Eleanor Smeal, the president of the National Organization for Women, the group that spearheaded the Equal Rights Amendment Countdown Campaign, which has now ended in defeat. In the 10 years since Congress passed the proposed constitutional amendment to forbid discrimination on the basis of sex, it has been ratified by 35 states, three short of the three-fourths it needed to become part of the Constitution.

THE New York Shakespeare Festival gets under way tonight at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, not with Shakespeare but with his French counterpart, Moliere. And not with one of Moliere's familiar comedies either, but with ''Don Juan.'' To this day, it remains one of the least known and least performed of his major works. Then why ''Don Juan'' in Central Park? ''Moliere has always been a people's playwright, and the average person's association with Don Juan is romantic or psychological,'' explained Joseph Papp, the festival's producer. ''This play explores his character in a unique way.'' In 27 years of free theater in the park, this opening marks Moliere's first appearance. The production chosen by Mr. Papp is the staging done last year by Richard Foreman at the Tyrone Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.

AFICIONADOS of the Kool Jazz Festival have come to expect star performers, and this year's edition is no exception. Benny Goodman, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Buddy Rich, Joe Williams and Mel Torme are just some of the major artists who will appear in the first weekend of the festival, which begins a 10-day run in New York this evening. But along with these regulars, the first three days of the festival will highlight performers for whom a jazz festival appearance is unusual - Eileen Farrell, the opera singer, Mabel Mercer, the peerless cabaret singer, Mitch Miller, the conductor and arranger, and Harvey Phillips, the classical tuba player. There will even be musicians from Senegal, India and Turkey. The first official concert of the festival will take place at 5 P.M. today, when Art Hodes gives a piano recital in the Forum Room of the New York Sheraton. The 77-year-old Mr. Hodes, who was born in Russia, began playing his strongly bluesoriented piano style in Chicago in the mid-1920's. He was part of the group of young Chicago musicians that included Gene Krupa, Bud Freeman, Muggsy Spanier and Frank Teschemacher, who built the explosive style that became identified as ''Chicago Jazz.''

Precinct 23 One Neighborhood Battles Crime A series of articles appearing periodically. By M.A. FARBER To the 126 officers of the 23d Precinct, membership in what they call the ''book of the month club'' is a serious matter. It can affect the officers' assignments, job evaluations, relations with their superiors and the ease with which they can get such favors as an unscheduled day off. More than is realized -and more than many officers would like - the Police Department is setting standards for performance that center on an officer's success with his summons book. The frantic multimillion-dollar world of parking summonses has become an increasingly competitive scramble for cars to ticket, a world in which many officers say they regard the brown-uniformed traffic agent as their ''enemy No. 1.'' The pressure to produce summonses has a direct impact, not only on the pocketbooks of thousands of New Yorkers, but also on the expenditure of police manpower.