October 3, 1982

At least 60 people were killed and 700 injured when a huge bomb exploded in Teheran's main square, the Iranian state radio reported today. Most of the casualties occurred in nearby hotels, restaurants and passing buses, the radio said. It said the bomb consisted of about 330 pounds of TNT packed into a parked truck. No group claimed responsibility for the bombing, which ocurred Friday night. But the Teheran radio, monitored here, blamed it on ''American mercenaries.''

From Virginia to California, Democratic House candidates with serious hopes of ousting incumbent Republicans are making the 1982 election a referendum on the economy. Gene Eidenberg, director of the Democratic National Committee, said he was pleased to see that Democrats First of two articles. were sustaining an attack on the ''radical'' economic policies that Republicans had voted for. Rarely do candidates speak that sharply, but sometimes their tone is blunt, as when Frank Harrison tells voters in Scranton, Pa., that the policies of President Reagan and of Mr. Harrison's Republican opponent, Representative James L. Nelligan, amount to a deliberate choice to increase unemployment. Sometimes it is gentler, as when Norman Sisitsky's television commercials in southeastern Virginia proclaim, almost sorrowfully, ''The Republicans didn't mean to start a recession, but they did.''

China is causing widespread and serious damage to its natural environment in its effort to quadruple its economic output in the next 20 years, according to a survey of the published writings of more than a score of Chinese scientists. Vast forest areas have been denuded, lakes and streams have been polluted and substantial soil erosion and loss of arable land have occurred, the survey reports, as China has expanded and upgraded its farms, factories and utilities. The consensus among the scientists, writing in official scientific and political papers published in Chinese journals, is that the environmental deterioration poses a serious threat to their nation's physical well-being and hence to its social stability. The survey, to be published in the October issue of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, was done by Dr. Vaclav Smil, professor of geography at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. It is believed to be the first comprehensive view of all aspects of the condition of China's natural resources.

WHITE PLAINS ONE of the things that happens when politicians march off to autumnal campaigns is that administrators, like warriors' wives, have to stay behind and do the chores. So it is for J. Robert Dolan, whose daily focus must continue to be such matters as the airport curfew, the proposed utility agency and the next county budget, while ''the boss,'' County Executive Alfred B. DelBello, spends three or four days a week running for statewide office. Mr. Dolan is the county's executive officer, the top appointive post in county government, to which Mr. DelBello named him the day after he took office as County Executive in January 1974. Both men come from Yonkers, where Mr. DelBello was Mayor and Mr. Dolan was assistant city manager. Mr. DelBello now lives in Waccabuc, and his 44-year-old executive officer moved to Mamaroneck three years ago, but they work closely from adjoining ninth-floor offices in the County Office Building here. Campaigning before the primary elections, Mr. DelBello was absent from his corner office an average of two days a week. Now that he has won the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor, he expects his time away to increase as the Nov. 2 election appoaches, perhaps even to ''stay out a week or two'' at the end. This probability, however, does not imply that Mr. Dolan will take over more responsibility, according to Mr. DelBello, just that ''he has to give it more'' work.

The California Angels took the lead on Fred Lynn's two-run homer in the fifth inning today and held on to clinch the American League Western Division title by beating the Texas Rangers, 6-4. The title was the first for Gene Mauch in his 23 years of managing. Trailing by 4-3 at a time when second-place Kansas City had already beaten Oakland, 5-4, the Angels rallied in the fifth off Charlie Hough (16-13). Rod Carew opened with a walk, and Lynn hit his 21st home run on Hough's first pitch to him.