February 11, 1983

An engineer for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has changed his view and now says he has less confidence in the safety of the nuclear plant at Shoreham, L.I., according to an affidavit that became public today. James H. Conran, a senior systems engineer for the commission, said in the affidavit to the licensing board that he could no longer ''in good conscience'' support his original testimony before the board last summer. He criticized the commission staff for being too slow in developing a safety program that develops ways to indentify the potential for multiple failures at a plant resulting from interaction between systems. The program, known as systems interaction, would apply not only to Shoreham, but also to other plants.

Stock market prices rose sharply yesterday, mostly on renewed expectations that interest rates will decline. Two of the three major market indicators closed at record levels. The Dow Jones industrial average, composed of 30 prominent companies, soared 20.33 points to 1,087.75, within striking range of its record close of 1,092.35 on Jan.10. The New York Stock Exchange's composite index of 1,500 common stocks gained 1.31, to a record 85.10, while Standard & Poor's 500-stock index also closed at a new high, 147.50, up 2.50.

The United American Bank empire, run by Jake Butcher, a Tennessean who strongly supported former President Jimmy Carter and lent money to Bert Lance, is apparently under severe financial stress, buffeted by losses from questionable loans and an extensive audit by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. In addition, Mr. Butcher, a flamboyant, silver-haired entrepreneur and politician who brought the 1982 World's Fair to Knoxville, Tenn., has been removed from the executive committee of the UAB bank in Knoxville and stripped by the F.D.I.C. of his policy-making power there, according to sources familiar with the inner workings of the bank. The bank acknowledged the management changes and the audit but said the changes had nothing to do with the audit. Mr. Butcher remains chairman of the United American Banks operating in Knokville, Memphis, and Chattanooga, Tenn., and Somerset and Lexington, Ky., as well as of United American Group, an interstate bank management company that arranges multibank loans. Each of the organizations is a separate corporation; UAB in Knoxville is the largest.

Financial leaders from around the world neared agreement today on a 50 percent increase in the resources of the International Monetary Fund, the 146-nation organization that lends to countries hard pressed for cash. An accord on the amount of the increasse, which is being negotiated at a conference of the I.M.F.'s policy-making Interim Committee here, should be completed before the meeting ends tomorrow, conference sources said. The United States, the I.M.F.'s biggest contributor, originally opposed any increase in the contributions -known as quotas - that member countries make to the agency's pool of lendable money. But now, the conference sources said, Washington would accept a rise of 48 to 50 percent.

An article about Joe Walton in some copies of Sports Pages yesterday incorrectly listed the teams that recently interviewed him for head coach. The teams were the Kansas City Chiefs, the Atlanta Falcons and the Los Angeles Rams. The Washington Redskins were not among them.