April 9, 1983

The Reagan Administration promised King Hussein of Jordan today that if he agreed to join the Middle East peace negotiations, the United States would seek to bring about a halt in the building of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The statement was issued by the State Department amid uncertainty and concern in Washington over King Hussein's talks with Yasir Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization. There are reports that Mr. Arafat has been unable to secure wide support in the P.L.O. to give King Hussein authority to negotiate with Israel on behalf of Palestinians living in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza. Palestinian officials said today that Mr. Arafat chose not to return to Amman from Kuwait to complete his talks with King Hussein because of substantial differences that remained between the two men. (Page 4.)

The agricultural miracle that permits this small town in Arkansas County to call itself the rice capital of the world is about to begin again with spring planting. But the chemicals that make the miracle possible may also pose a health threat to the region's residents, according to doctors and scientists. The so-called phenoxy herbicides 2,4,5-T, silvex and 2,4-D, used here to combat aquatic weeds that can clog rice fields, are contaminated by dioxins, one of which is the most toxic compound synthesized by man. Dioxins have been shown to cause cancer in animals, although their effects on humans are still being studied. The Environmental Protection Agency banned the herbicides 2,4,5-T and silvex for most uses in 1979. However, an exception was made for rice paddies and rangelands, even though the agency said the pesiticides posed ''risks which are greater than the social, economic and environmental benefits.''

By 11 o'clock Thursday morning Graciela Oster, eight months pregnant, feared that the moment was at hand, just as the flood waters were rising. So she and her family headed for Southern Baptist Hospital in New Orleans, 20 miles from their home in Chalmette. When they reached the hospital, it was surrounded by rushing rivers usually known by such names as Napoleon Avenue and Clara Street. The Osters called to two men in a boat nearby. ''My sister-in-law told me to turn sideways to show them I was pregnant,'' Mrs. Oster recalled from her bed today.

Economic hardships, outside political pressures and a campaign by anti-Sandinist guerrillas in northern and central Nicaragua appear to have widened a gap between the Government and important segments of the middle class. ''There is no longer any middle ground in our revolution,'' Leticia Herrera, national director of the Sandinist Defense Committees, told a wildly cheering crowd of several hundred impoverished Nicaraguans who gathered at a public meeting here a few days ago. ''Now is the time to close ranks against the enemies of the people,'' Miss Herrera declared. The enemies, she said, are not only the anti-Sandinist insurgents but also ''the speculators, the people who spread rumors on buses and in markets, and the taxi drivers who force their passengers to listen to criticisms of the revolution.'' Although the insurgents have not managed to seize even the smallest village or achieve any other substantial military success, they have prompted the Sandinist Government to begin a new wave of attacks against its domestic critics, aggravating the political polarization.

State officials said yesterday that New York City would have a budget surplus of between $158 million and $300 million this fiscal year. Mayor Koch said he would be able to use some of the money to avoid many of the employee reductions and tax increases he had planned for the fiscal year 1984. ''The money is there and we're going to spend it, and we're not going to spend it on a party,'' Mr. Koch said at a City Hall news conference. He declined to say specifically how city services and agencies would benefit, or which taxes he would drop from the long list he has proposed.