January 4, 1983

Pan American World Airways is seeking to recover from a costly marketing mistake it made involving travel agents last year, just as it enters the lean winter months when it must dip into cash reserves until the seasonal spring pickup begins. The miscalculation cost the carrier much business during the height of the summer tourist season, when it generally makes most of its money, and has left it in a more difficult position during the current slow period. Pan Am's experience also illustrates the power of the travel agent over the airline industry. Last March, Pan Am suspended commission overrides - the added payments that some travel agencies receive if they surpass certain sales levels. It also withdrew such bonuses as free travel for those who arrange convention business.

While the worldwide recession has buffeted European business in general, Unilever, the giant British-Dutch consumer products company, seems to be holding to a balanced, if plodding, course by virtue of its sheer size and stable management. ''Their broad geographical spread and product selection makes them fairly recession-resistant,'' said a West German securities analyst. ''But it is not an exciting investment. It's the kind of share you put your money in and leave.''

In a crowded Republican celebration at which hundreds of invited guests were turned away, Andrew P. O'Rourke was sworn in today as Westchester's sixth County Executive. He succeeds Lieut. Gov. Alfred B. DelBello, the first Democrat to hold the post. Mr. O'Rourke, a 49-year-old lawyer, pledged to run a ''reasonable, responsive, compassionate and efficient government,'' but one that he said could ''legitimately aid localities - and their budgets - by cutting out duplicative services and functions.'' A Republican who served for eight years as a member of the county Legislature, the last four as its chairman, Mr. O'Rourke said: ''Government has been described as the art of doing the possible. From my years in county government, I know what it can do, and I know what it cannot do.''

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has pumped almost $175 million into 15 deeply troubled savings banks, most of them in New York City, the agency's chairman said yesterday. Without the insurance corporation's injection of capital, the banks could not continue operating much longer because they would run out of surplus funds, the amount by which their assets exceed their debts, Government officials said. William M. Isaac, the F.D.I.C. chairman, said in an interview that the agency acted under new powers granted last year by Congress. The Government loans were required because of persistent losses by the savings banks as a result of high interest rates. The high rates forced the banks to pay more for deposits than they were receiving from their investments, mostly in long-term mortgages. Although interest rates have declined sharply, many savings banks continue to hold long-term deposits at high interest rates and they will continue to lose money until these deposits mature.

Schools on Staten Island and in the Douglaston-Little Neck section of northeastern Queens, perennial leaders in reading, ranked highest on the annual citywide reading achievement tests given last spring, according to a report released yesterday by the New York City Board of Education. Preliminary data last spring showed that 51 percent of the pupils in the city's elementary schools and junior high schools had reading scores above the national average, but gave no information on individual schools. The latest report provides results for each grade level in every elementary school and junior high school in the system. High schools are not included in the testing program. Eight of New York City's 20 highest-ranking elementary schools were on Staten Island, District 31, where 34 of the 38 elementary schools and eight of the nine junior high schools exceeded the national average.

WITH electronics getting smarter and friendlier every day, whether in the guise of personal computers or bionic organs, the friendly old television set has stayed essentially unchanged in this country since the advent of color broadcasting in the 1950's. But this long period of somnolence may end during the decade of the '80's. The change will not be so much a matter of program content - a social problem beyond technological considerations - as an evolutionary leap in equipment.

A political gibe going the rounds in Madrid says that President Francois Mitterrand of France has done a great service to European Socialism by giving Spanish Socialists a good reason to pursue conservative economic policies. Eight weeks after Spain's Socialists were voted into power, the country's 40-year-old Prime Minister, Felipe Gonzalez, and his equally youthful Cabinet are striving to develop a moderate, pragmatic image. That is especially true in their handling of Spain's deeply troubled economy. The Spanish view contrasts sharply with the doctrinaire left-wing policies that Mr. Mitterrand adopted when he took office in France 18 months ago.

''I'm hopeful that we have reversed a continuing upward spiral of subway crime and have begun to see it come down.'' - James B. Meehan, chief of the Transit Authority Police. (A1:1.)

A private commission of prominent American Jews, set up 15 months ago to examine the behavior of Jewish organizations in this country at the time of the Nazi campaign to annihilate European Jews, has split up in anger and dissension. Arthur J. Goldberg, former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, who was chairman of the commission, said the panel was dissolved because its key sponsor had failed to come up with all the funds promised to support research into the highly sensitive question of what established Jewish organizations did and did not do in the 1939-45 period when Hitler's Nazi regime systematically murdered six million Jews. Backer Explains Stand But, in response to this charge, Jack Eisner, a wealthy businessman and concentration camp survivor who financially supported the commission, said he had concluded that it would ''take another 10 years, perhaps 15, before the American Jewish community will be courageous enough to objectively look at itself.'' ''It became apparent that the vestiges of the old establishment were fighting to protect its name,'' said Mr. Eisner. ''And it became apparent to me that the motto expressed by Mr. Goldberg, 'to let the chips fall where they may,' would not be carried out.''

After a long upward trend, the number of serious crimes reported on the New York City subway system remained roughly the same in 1982 as in 1981, according to preliminary data released yesterday by the Transit Authority police. The statistics, which are subject to slight modifications, showed that there were 15,192 reported felonies in 1982, three fewer than the record 15,195 in 1981. While officials said that the decline was too small to be significant, they said the numbers represented an important leveling off. ''I'm hopeful that we have reversed a continuing upward spiral of subway crime and have begun to see it come down,'' said James B. Meehan, the chief of the transit police.

The F.D.I.C. has pumped almost $175 million into 15 troubled savings banks, most of them in New York City. The Federal agency acted under new powers granted last year by Congress, according to its chairman. Without such aid, officials said, the banks could not have continued operating much longer. The Bowery received $58.7 million in aid, by far the largest amount. (Page A1.) Some $30 billion in cuts in domestic programs will be included in President Reagan's budget for the fiscal year 1984, according to Administration officials. They said, however, that Mr. Reagan has yet to decide on further steps to bring the deficit below $200 billion. (A1.) At the opening of the 98th Congress, both parties called for more cooperation in dealing with the nation's economic problems. (A14.)

After years of shirking on the job, the truck driver had a bad conscience. Then Yuri V. Andropov became the Soviet leader in November and put his foot down on an issue that has been helping to drag the economy toward stagnation: sloth, absenteeism and drunkenness. In his first major speech, Mr. Andropov declared war on ''shoddy work, inactivity and irresponsibility.'' Next, he had the ruling Politburo issue a decree encouraging ordinary people to step up the flow of letters exposing idleness, poor management, the squandering of state resources, an increasing crime rate and other common ills. Pravda, the Communist Party newspaper, reported an avalanche of letters, and the trucker's confession was among those it printed. The indolence and cynicism that the man described in his Moscow garage was presented as typical of the habits of a substantial proportion of the 114 million people who make up the Soviet work force.