August 24, 1983

One of the oldest financial services companies for the garment trade, the William Iselin Company, yesterday said that it had sued its former chief executive and two former employees, charging them with conspiring with a large apparel group to defraud Iselin of more than $15 million from 1978 through 1982. The company, a subsidiary of the RCA Corporation's C.I.T. unit, filed suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against five individuals and several businesses. It charged them, along with 10 unnamed individuals, with a pattern of fraudulent activity that it said violated a number of Federal statutes. The charges involve what Iselin said was a tangle of invoices on sales that were never made, backed up by false bills of lading and forged signatures. The proceeds of the fraud, the complaint says, went to buy real estate, race horses and an interest in a professional basketball team, as well as the establishment of businesses in the United States and abroad.

An obelisk-shaped apartment tower would rise more than 425 feet on West 70th Street if the Landmarks Preservation Commission approves a plan offered yesterday in a stormy meeting. Because the needle-like building, which would be one of the tallest on Central Park West, would extend over the landmark Congregation Shearith Israel Synagogue, the commission has the last word on the matter. That word will not come until Sept. 27 at the earliest. The developers said they would need no further city approval, as their building follows existing zoning rules.

With attitudes ranging from ''New York Is So Exciting'' and ''All the Critics Love U in New York'' to ''I'm Never Going Back to New York City,'' songwriters have been producing a bumper crop of songs about New York. For one reason or another, lyricists and composers seem to be finding the city more inspiring these days. ''It's a new golden age for songs about New York,'' said Hal David, the songwriter who is president of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, or Ascap. Such is the magic of the city's name, for songwriters at least, that their offerings of recent years have included ''N.Y.C.,'' ''Native New Yorker,'' ''I Love New York,'' ''New York State of Mind'' and at least two songs called ''New York, New York,'' one this year and one in 1977. More than 500,000 copies have been sold of ''Night and Day,'' a 1982 long-playing record album containing ''Chinatown'' and other rock songs about the city by Joe Jackson. ''I Love the New York Yankees,'' written in 1981 by Paula Lindstrom, has become the team's theme song.

One of five fugitive Solidarity leaders has turned himself in and called for an end to the clandestine struggle, the Polish state television reported tonight. Wladyslaw Hardek, leader of the Nowa Huta steel mill, a Solidarity stronghold, was shown on the evening newscast reading a statement saying he regretted causing divisions among Poles. The newscast said he surrendered Monday. He is the highest-ranking resistance figure to have responded to a Government campaign to persuade opposition figures to give up. Mr. Hardek, one of the chief organizers of the resistance, had been in hiding since martial law was imposed on Dec. 13, 1981.

President Reagan criticized the ''so-called peace movement'' today, saying its supporters ''would wage peace by weakening the free.'' In a speech to a veterans' organization here, Mr. Reagan also claimed slow but steady progress for his foreign policy as well as for his arms control and rearmament programs. ''Peace is a beautiful word, but it is also freely used, sometimes even abused,'' the President told a national convention of the American Legion. Those who abuse it, Mr. Reagan said, are engaged in a campaign of ''modern hype and theatrics.''