November 23, 1983

A report in Sports Pages yesterday about the Columbia-Fairleigh Dickinson soccer game incorrectly reported the scheduled date. It is 1 P.M. Sunday, at Baker Field.

The International Monetary Fund today gave its seal of approval to a new austerity program for Brazil in a decision expected to unlock more than $12 billion of fresh credits for the world's biggest debtor country and help it stave off default. The action, authorized after a day- long meeting of the Board of Governors, permits Brazil to draw an additional $1.2 billion from the I.M.F. and $11 billion from commercial banks and government lenders such as the United States Export-Import Bank. The board issued a terse 150-word statement saying that Brazil had now been granted ''a waiver'' on some of the earlier economic performance conditions and that a new ''understanding'' had been reached on ''modifications of existing performance criteria and on new performance criteria.'' The 146-nation lending agency, which has been acting as manager of the world debt crisis, helps cash- strapped countries meet their immediate financing needs; in exchange it requires that the borrowers cut subsidies, curb wage increases, raise taxes and take other steps to improve their economic performance and shrink their imports.

SOMEONE invites you to a dinner party. You accept, and then you realize that you cannot remember the last time you entertained. For three years you have been telling friends that you will have them over as soon as the chairs are recovered, but you are still waiting for the fabric. Now there is another excuse: You cannot think about giving a dinner party with Thanksgiving at hand. Well, wait until the last turkey leftover is put away and then consider this: The small dinner party, which seems to have made a comeback lately, can be among the warmest, most convivial of occasions. Few experiences have more innate appeal than an evening of conversation and good food, shared with friends in the surroundings of your home - and few times are more appropriate than the festive season. Of course, the reason you have been procrastinating is that the occasion, warm and convivial as it may be, simply

President Reagan has directed the Justice Department to investigate the unauthorized disclosure of details about National Security Council meetings in September on the situation in Lebanon, an Administration source said tonight. The source said that the inquiry, which the President was said to have initiated in mid-September with a letter to Attorney General William French Smith, is focusing on people present at the meetings last Sept. 10 and 11. They were said to include top White House staff members, National Security Council members, and officials of the Defense Department and the Central Intelligence Agency.

On the 20th anniversary of his assassination, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was remembered by his family and political clan today as the enduring leader of a multitude ''still in the arena at the center of the struggle.'' On a brilliant day that surged with bitter memory, Senator Edward M. Kennedy echoed the hopes of his slain Text of the tribute is on page A18. brother and predicted that the thousand days of the Kennedy Presidency would be remembered for a thousand years. ''All of us in this church may not gather all together again,'' the Massachusetts Senator told a crowd of Kennedy family members and gray-haired political supporters at Holy Trinity Church. ''But for those of us who share the commitments, the compassion and the high hopes of John Kennedy, there will never be a last assembly.''