July 16, 1983

A bomb exploded in a suitcase at a Turkish Airlines check-in counter at Orly Airport today, killing at least five people and wounding 56. An Armenian group said it was responsible for the explosion, which sent luggage and shards of glass flying through the terminal. Vacationers and other travelers ran screaming through corridors and out of doors as they tried to escape the crowded terminal, which filled with thick, gray smoke. ''The explosion was very, very brief, but extremely violent,'' said Dr. Cyrus Irampour, a French psychiatrist. ''The noise made less of an impression. It was the flames. I got up and turned around and it was flames.''

When Ronald Reagan's campaign aides received briefing papers from the Carter camp in October 1980, apparently no one asked how the documents had been obtained, according to former campaign officials. They said only one adviser raised questions about the propriety of using the papers. Without exception, the officials, many of whom now serve in senior positions in the Reagan Administration, recalled that no one on the group that prepared Mr. Reagan for his debate with President Carter asked whether the papers had been stolen. Also, no one asked whether the papers had come from a disaffected Carter supporter or someone working directly for Mr. Reagan, the officials said. The one objection raised to keeping and using the papers in the Presidential campaign, the officials said, came from Myles Martel, a debating specialist who acted as a consultant to the Reagan campaign. When he was told about the Carter papers several days before the debate, Mr. Martel recommended that they be returned immediately. The suggestion was not seriously considered.

The United States agreed formally today to a compromise document on security and human rights to end the East-West conference in Madrid and possibly open the way for high-level Soviet-American meetings. The conference, which has been under way nearly three years, is expected to be finished in the next week. All that remains for discussion, American officials said, is a demand by Malta for a Mediterranean security meeting. The demand is opposed by most of the 34 other participants in the East-West meeting.

The Reagan Administration's crackdown on apparel imports from the Far East will push up some fall clothing prices by at least 20 percent, according to American companies that make and market the clothing. About 75 American companies manufacture low-priced clothing at plants in Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and China and then sell it in the United States. They charge that the Reagan Administration ban has been imposed capriciously and in some cases has left a shipment of suit coats sitting on American piers while the pants remain in Hong Kong. The Reagan Administration ordered the restriction on the ground that the imports had risen too quickly, preventing domestic manufacturers from increasing their production and their labor force as the economy recovers from recession.

Lebanese Army units and Shiite Moslem militiamen clashed in the heart of Beirut today after Government security forces tried to evict Shiite squatters from an abandoned Jewish school. The shootout began about 10 A.M., peaked at midday and continued into the night. It was the worst fighting in the capital since the army took control of the Greater Beirut area in September and early October, after the withdrawal of Israeli forces. As news of the fighting spread the streets of West Beirut became largely deserted. People closeted themselves in their homes or listened to the fighting in small groups sitting on their balconies. Most shopkeepers, fearing that the clashes might spread, rolled down their steel shutters and closed for the day.