February 1, 1983

The purchase by the Plessey Company P.L.C. earlier this month of a stake in Scientific-Atlanta Inc., the American cable television and satellite-equipment concern, is small beer, as far as American acquisitions go. The deal will amount to $114 million, at most. But coupled with Plessey's purchase last fall of part of another American technology concern, the Stromberg-Carlson Corporation, it is being seen here as a major corporate step. The two investments leave little doubt that Britain's largest telecommunications company is pinning its hopes on the American market to confront the challenges of deregulation at home and in the United States.

Astor, the Bronx Zoo's mischievous, inquisitive baby elephant, who charmed children and their escorts with his high-pitched cries and ear-flopping romps through the Wild Asia area, has died, apparently of heart disease. He was 17 months old.

Wall Street economists gave President Reagan's budget mixed reviews yesterday. On the one hand, analysts were pleased with Mr. Reagan's recognition of the economic threat posed by rising Federal budget deficits and the economic projections upon which those figures were based. On the other, they said the size of those deficits, and the prescriptions offered to cope with them, did not offer much hope for the future. ''This budget is a mixed blessing,'' said David Jones, chief economist at Aubrey G. Lanston & Company, a Government securities dealer. ''Unlike a year ago, we have a budget deficit which is at least based on realistic economic assumptions. But the arithmetic of the deficits still threatens to overwhelm the financial markets.''

With his budget for the fiscal year 1984, President Reagan is declaring that the enormous Federal deficits ahead cannot be reduced without help from some of his severest critics in Congress. Thus, Mr. Reagan is proclaiming a new era of bipartisanship that White House officials say could clear the way for significant revisions of the budget by Congress in the areas of taxes, military spending, domestic spending and jobs programs. Since the November elections, when the Republicans lost 26 seats in the House, a certain amount of Congressional tinkering with Mr. Reagan's next budget has been regarded as inevitable. This became clearer as Republican leaders in the Senate signaled their independence in recent weeks. As described by Mr. Reagan's aides, the goal of the budget makers this year was to produce a realistic plan that could serve as a framework for discussion on Capitol Hill and guarantee that Mr. Reagan would be the major player in those discussions.

President Reagan, in an open letter read here tonight by Vice President Bush, called on Yuri V. Andropov, the Soviet leader, to meet him to sign a treaty banning all intermediaterange, land-based nuclear missiles. Addressing the people of Europe, Mr. Reagan's message said he would meet with Mr. Andropov ''whenever and wherever he wants'' to conclude an agreement totally eliminating the weapons. ''I make this offer,'' the President said, ''out of the conviction that such an agreement would serve the interests of both sides, and, more importantly, that the people of Europe want nothing more.'' (In Washington, a deputy White House press secretary, Lyndon Allin, said Mr. Reagan was not making a new proposal but was simply stating a willingness to sign a pact with Mr. Andropov if the Soviet Union accepts the United States so-called zero-option proposal. (In Tokyo, Secretary of State George P. Shultz told Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone that the United States would never negotiate an agreement on reducing medium-range missiles in Europe at the expense of Japan's security. Page A9.)