May 30, 1983

Four years ago when the leaders of the seven advanced industrial nations gathered in Tokyo, the power of the oil producing countries of the Persian Gulf and North Africa was so much on their minds that it seemed as if the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries was an uninvited guest at their dinner table. This year, the preoccupation with the political turmoil in Europe and the propaganda battle with Moscow over the touchy issue of deploying American nuclear missiles in Western Europe and the politially seductive prospect of an American-Soviet summit meeting made the Russians a palpable, though distant, presence at Williamsburg. ''Tokyo was the OPEC summit,'' recalled Chiaki Yamakawa, an anchorman for Fuji Television, who has covered several economic summit meetings. ''This is the Russia summit.''

The leaders of the seven nations at the economic summit meeting called on the Soviet Union tonight to negotiate constructively on reducing nuclear weapons and warned that any attempt to divide the West would fail. The statement came after daylong discussions on its wording, taking up unexpected portions of the leaders' agenda, and leaving an impression of divisions at a conference intended to express economic solidarity and converging views. But the statement, which was endorsed by France and Japan even though they are not members of the military wing of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, had the mark of a success for the Reagan Administration, which pressed for a firm definition of the Western security stance at the conference. French Objections Raised French officials said they had initially raised objections to issuing a statement on arms control before a statement on the main work of the conference, economic matters, was made. They also said they did not wish to be committed to positions endorsed by the NATO allies but not specifically by France.

When Byron Chalfant Jr. was a child growing up in the summer resort of Beach Haven, N.J., Memorial Day weekend would always take him by surprise, but it never went unnoticed. ''All of a sudden, on Friday you'd be coming home from school on the bus,'' said Mr. Chalfant, ''and it would take half an hour. Then you'd know - it's Memorial Day.'' Life is not the same before and after Memorial Day weekend in many of the seaside towns of New Jersey and Long Island. Almost overnight, the towns' populations double or triple. The weekend known as the unofficial start of summer is often the official start of a summer's lease on a bungalow, and it triggers the migration of thousands.

Lawyers for the Central Intelligence Agency and the American Civil Liberties Union say they may be close to agreement on a formula for amending the Freedom of Information Act to exempt numerous files relating to the agency's clandestine operations. Spokesmen for the civil liberties union said the formula would preserve public access to all documents that must be disclosed under current law. The C.I.A.'s support for the plan reflects a major change from its previous insistence that it should be entirely exempt from the disclosure law, according to Ernest Mayerfeld, deputy general counsel of the intelligence agency. Introduced by Goldwater The compromise is contained in a bill introduced recently by Senator Barry Goldwater, the Arizona Republican who is chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

President Reagan removed Thomas O. Enders as the chief State Department officer on Latin American affairs because of frustration that Administration policies were being poorly managed and badly promoted in Congress, Administration officials said today. The officials asserted that ''policy implementation,'' rather than the policies themselves, was at issue in Mr. Reagan's decision to reassign Mr. Enders, the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, to an ambassadorial post and replace him with Langhorne A. Motley, the American envoy to Brazil. The shift was announced Friday by Secretary of State George P. Shultz. Mr. Enders declined to be interviewed today.