May 4, 1983

Tornadoes roared across 11 counties in western and central New York Monday evening, killing three people, injuring dozens more and damaging or destroying hundreds of homes, state officials said. The destructive winds and rain, ''sounding like 10 jet fighters going over,'' according to Joseph Johnson, a Chautauqua County resident, moved eastward across the state, pulling trees from the ground, blowing apart houses and barns and tossing cars in the air. In rural Boonville, north of Utica, the village police station, which was not occupied at the time, was torn from its foundation by a tornado that smashed it down two blocks away. The funnel then skipped over the Sunset Nursing Home across the street, breaking a few windows as it went by, to continue a three-mile-long path of destruction.

A long-planned summit meeting of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, scheduled for this month, has been postponed indefinitely because of disputes within the group, East European sources said today. The meeting of Communist Party chiefs would have been the first such gathering of national leaders since 1971. It was to work out a trading strategy for the rest of the century for the 10-nation Communist economic alliance, which is usually referred to as Comecon.

The House Select Committee on Intelligence, in a setback for the Reagan Administration, voted today to cut off funds for the Central Intelligence Agency to conduct covert military actions in Nicaragua. Instead, by a party-line vote of 9 to 5, the committee authorized $80 million for overt aid to ''any friendly country in Central America,'' to help interrupt the flow of weapons through such nations from Cuba or Nicaragua to El Salvador or any other Central American nation. The committee action, which came in a closed session, may prove more symbolic than real. It is attached to an authorization bill for the fiscal year 1983, which may expire before Congressional action is completed because of an expected Presidential veto. The fiscal year ends Sept. 30.

A Senate housing subcommittee is investigating reports that the Federal National Mortgage Association, the nation's largest housing lender, has exerted undue influence on private companies to obtain support for a bill that would greatly expand the association's lending authority. Peter B. Harkins, staff director of the subcommittee, said yesterday that the reports of undue pressure -which have been widespread in the housing finance business - were ''obviously very disturbing.'' He added that the subcommittee was ''trying to determine whether or not to take this to the Justice Department.'' Informed of Mr. Harkins's concern, Caryl S. Bernstein, executive vice president and general counsel of the association, which is popularly known as Fannie Mae, said: ''This is very, very interesting. At the moment, I am charged with who's doing what to whom on our legislative front. I am unaware of anything.''

Early one evening last week at J & F Oldsmobile, along jampacked Route 440 in Jersey City, James and Arlene Brennan were doing something they had not done in 11 years. They were buying a car. And their choice was no compact but a big Delta 88, with a price tag of almost $12,000. Mr. Brennan, a dispatcher for a trucking company, conceded that the price shook him. But only a large car would satisfy the Brennans. A few years ago, their Pontiac Catalina was crumpled by a speeding ambulance. No one was seriously hurt, but the police told the Brennans that if they had not been riding in a big car, they would probably be dead. ''When there's no other big cars on the road, then maybe we'll get a smaller car,'' said Mrs. Brennan, who is a legal secretary. Like the Brennans, buyers across the country are demonstrating renewed affection for the big car.