October 31, 1982

NORTH TARRYTOWN WITH the auto industry hard pressed, county officials have begun to work with General Motors to explore ways to assure the continued operation here of the company's assembly plant, one of the county's largest employers. County and G. M. officials met here last Monday in what they said was a follow-up meeting to talks held in Detroit on Oct. 8. After last week's meeting, County Executive Alfred B. DelBello said no decisions had been made. He declined to disclose details of the conversations but did say that further talks were planned.

A MARGIN OF HOPE An Intellectual Autobiography. By Irving Howe. 352 pp. San Diego and New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. $14.95. One of the few advantages of growing older is the privilege of writing one's memoirs, and the generation of writers known as the New York intellectuals has lately seized this advantage with a vengeance. Never known for its reticence, this voluble, combative group, quiescent during the last two decades, is once again enlivening the scene, hastening to give testimony before it's too late - even before old age has quite set in. William Barrett's ''The Truants,'' the memoirs of Lionel Abel that have been appearing in Commentary, and now Irving Howe's ''A Margin of Hope'' are the work of men still vigorous enough to argue their side of things with considerable energy; their memories of the 30's and 40's possess the same polemical edge that distinguished them in those turbulent decades, when it seemed as if every issue of Partisan Review carried some fervent symposium on ''The Situation of American Writing,'' ''Our Country and Our Culture,'' ''Religion and the Intellectuals'' - what Philip Rahv once called ''the big issues.''

First article of a series appearing periodically on the new balance of power in the Middle East since the war in Lebanon. WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 - In the aftermath of the war in Lebanon, Reagan Administration officials say they are seeking to take advantage of what they regard as unparalleled opportunities for peace in the Middle East in the short run. But they fear that in the long run new power realities are tugging toward impasse. ''We are in a much better strategic position than we've been for 35 years,'' a White House official said. ''The Russians are less of a worry, and there is plenty of oil around so that we don't have to worry as much about Arab oil power. But all this means is that we are positioned to facilitate a process, that we have a lot more responsibility without much more power.''

HAMMONTON THE state's hotel-casinos are much more interested in developing train service between Atlantic City and New York than between Atlantic City and Philadelphia, a would-be railway operator disclosed last week. Thomas E.Frawley, president of Atlantic City Railway Inc., said at a news conference that, because investment from casinos was necessary for such rail service, his company was now proposing direct express service between Pennsylvania Station in New York and Atlantic City rather than from Philadelphia. Mr. Frawley said that several hotel-casinos would help to subsidize such a rail line by giving passengers partial fare rebates. In addition, he said, Resorts International Hotel-Casino has pledged to underwrite the $100,000 or so needed for research and engineering studies to determine whether such rail service would be profitable.

APARTLY vacant industrial area along Brooklyn's East River w aterfront -considered to be as rich in development potential as it i s in architectural history - is the focus of stepped-up efforts to b uild a vibrant complex of recreational, commercial and, possibly, r esidential facilities. But with the efforts have come clashing views over how much of the shabby 10-block area should be redeveloped, and how much, if any of it, should be maintained as an industrial center providing badly needed unskilled and semiskilled jobs. The differences raise issues of neighborhood-revival and economic-development strategy and illustrate how entrepreneurial stakes and local interests can clash on development. The area, a 10-minute walk from the downtown Brooklyn civic and commercial center, lies between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, with the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway as its eastern boundary. It is part of the Fulton Ferry district.