November 19, 1983

Congress finished its business and left town for the year tonight. Before leaving, the lawmakers gave final approval to legislation that raises the national debt ceiling, provides $250 billion for the Defense Department, increases the American contribution to the International Monetary Fund by $8.4 billion and authorizes the expenditure of $15.6 billion for subsidized housing programs. President Reagan fought hard for most of those bills and is considered certain to sign them. He does not like the housing legislation, but sponsors maneuvered it into the same package as the monetary fund increase, leaving the President little choice but to swallow the whole thing.

The United States said today that the Soviet Union had made a new, informal offer to cut by half the number of SS-20 missiles aimed at Western Europe if NATO dropped its plans to deploy 572 new American missiles in Europe. The proposal was turned down by the Reagan Administration. In Moscow, the Soviet Defense Minister, Dmitri F. Ustinov, issued a statement accusing the United States of having deliberately doomed disarmament negotiations. (Page 6.) But a West German Government spokesman, reacting earlier to the informal Soviet offer in Geneva, welcomed what he termed Soviet signs of flexibility in the arms talks.

The fervid band of people who served John Fitzgerald Kennedy is scattered and diverse now. Some have grown old, others conservative or conventional in the 20 years since the Kennedy Presidency was ended by an assassin's bullet in Dallas. But they are in agreement that his legacy is indelible, whether it is no more than a myth embedded in the national conscience or is based on tangible accomplishments such as space exploration or the Peace Corps. ''Like Franklin D. Roosevelt, he inspired an idealism about the kind of government we should have, and he wanted to harness that,'' said Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., the historian and Kennedy aide who has been trying to hold back a tide of negative revisionism about the Kennedy era. Harnessing idealism, Mr. Schlesinger said in a telephone interview, ''is what America is all about.''

The Reagan Administration, responding in advance to a television dramatization of a nuclear war and its aftermath, is stepping up its efforts to persuade the public that its policies are the best way to prevent such a war. The ABC-TV film, ''The Day After,'' to be broadcast Sunday, has become a rallying point for opponents of the Administration's nuclear arms policies. White House officials have recently made clear their concern that its showing would put the Administration on the defensive. The film graphically depicts the destruction of the area around Kansas City, Mo., in a nuclear attack. Publicity about the film has already thrust it into the larger political debate about nuclear arms.

The Reagan Administration is considering sanctions against Salvadoran exiles in the United States who are strongly suspected of paying for and at least partly directing death-squad activities in El Salvador, according to a senior Administration official. The actions being considered include ordering immigration officials to reconsider the visas of the suspected exiles and investigating their financial dealings in the United States, the official said. To avoid extended deportation proceedings, he said, the suspects may also be refused entry back into the United States the next time any of them travel abroad. 'We've Had It' ''We've had it with these guys,'' another United States official familiar with the issue said. ''If they don't clean up this time, we're going to do something.