September 24, 1983

Four United States marines were wounded tonight as shells, mortar rounds and small arms fire struck the Marine compound at the airport here. Two American warships and a Marine shore battery fired back. The action came after heavy fighting broke out between the Lebanese Army and anti-Government forces in nearby southern suburbs of Beirut populated predominantly by Moslem Shiites. For a time, the Beirut radio reported, shells fell at the rate of one every five seconds into the airport area where the marines are based. But a Marine Corps spokesman said later that although heavy fighting continued nearby, the shelling of the airport area had tapered off.

Howard H. Baker Jr., the Senate majority leader, gave Secretary of the Interior James G. Watt a grim assessment today of his standing on Capitol Hill amid mounting demands for Mr. Watt's resignation. Mr. Baker, a Tennessee Republican, told Mr. Watt that his effectiveness as Secretary had been seriously impaired by his remark Wednesday that a panel to review his coal-leasing policies was ideally balanced because it included ''a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple.'' Watt Apologizes to Panelists Also today, Mr. Watt personally apologized to each of the commission members. On Thursday he asked President Reagan to forgive the ''morally offensive'' remark, noting that it came in a speech in which he praised the high qualifications of the panel members. He had followed the offensive remark with the statement, ''And we have talent.''

Adminstration officials said today that President Reagan will make public at the United Nations Monday a new proposal for breaking the deadlock in the medium-range nuclear missile talks with the Soviet Union. The central idea is a higher proposed ceiling on missile warheads for each side worldwide, combined with an agreement by Washington not to deploy all of its permitted missile warheads abroad. The proposed ceiling would allow Moscow to keep a greater number of its more than 1,500 existing missile warheads than the Administration's current position of 300 warheads for each side, and it would thus go far beyond Mr. Reagan's original proposal of zero for each. No Specific Ceiling Administration officials said the new total could run as high as 625 warheads, but that Mr. Reagan had not approved any specific ceiling in the hope of being able to negotiate a lower one.

More than a thousand Government troops beat back crowds of young demonstrators tonight as they tried to advance on the presidential palace. Several shots were fired, and one civilian reportedly suffered an arm wound. Two other demonstrations took place earlier in the day - one by office workers in the financial district and the other by students near the United States Embassy. Both were broken up by tear gas.

A man described by Federal officials as a Bulgarian intelligence agent was arrested on an espionage charge last night as he left a restaurant in Manhattan. He was said to have been carrying highly classified nuclear secrets received from an American who was cooperating with the authorities. The Federal Bureau of Investigation said the suspect, Penyu B. Kostadinov, 41 years old, an assistant counselor for the Bulgarian Commercial Office at 121 East 62d Street, was taken into custody at 7:15 P.M. as he left the Gulf & Western Building on Columbus Circle. Mr. Kostadinov, who lives at 315 East 86th Street and has worked in New York as a Bulgarian trade representative since 1979, was said to have obtained the secret documents from the American at a dinner meeting at the Top of the Park, a restaurant atop the tower on the southwest corner of Central Park.