December 3, 1983

Judge Irving R. Kaufman, chairman of the President's Commission on Organized Crime, has refused to sign a pledge prepared by the White House for all panel members to abide by Justice Department ethical standards and not to disclose information without authorization. The judge, who sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, has told White House and Justice Department officials that he does not object to the substance of the agreement. Rather, according to those involved, Judge Kaufman thought it improper for a Federal judge to be asked to sign such a pledge. ''Judge Kaufman refused to sign because he felt it was offensive for a Federal judge and because it was contrary to principle and conscience,'' said one of those familiar with his position.

Deputy Secretary of State Kenneth W. Dam said today that right-wing terrorists in El Salvador and Guatemala were largely responsible for the successes of Marxism in the Caribbean region. ''The death squads and their backers in El Salvador and Guatemala are enemies of democracy every bit as much as the guerrillas and their Cuban and Soviet sponsors,'' Mr. Dam said in an address to the seventh annual conference on trade, investment and development in the Caribbean basin. In Washington, President Reagan said he had killed legislation requiring that he report regularly on human rights conditions in El Salvador because the reports might actually invite rather than discourage death-squad violence. (Page 6.)

The bride and bridegroom were led to their wedding reception by a parade of clowns. Also by 21 elephants, 13 tigers, 6 camels and 2 llamas. And then what did the newlyweds do? They performed a duet on the flying trapeze, and, while love was in the air, the bride tossed her bouquet into a crowd of 3,000 onlookers. In short, it was the sort of wedding that suited the marriage of the most daring young man on the flying trapeze to his aerial partner. Miguel Angel Vazquez, the first and only circus flyer to achieve the quadruple somersault, wed the aerialist Rosa America Segrera today in a church near the winter quarters of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

The new chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said yesterday that he planned to recommend that New York City's bus and subway fare be increased next month to 90 cents, a rise of 15 cents. The chairman, Robert R. Kiley, said he also planned to propose fare increases of 20 to 25 percent on the Metro- North Commuter Railroad and the Long Island Rail Road for 1984. The fare increases would be the first in two and a half years on the buses, subways and commuter lines. In addition, Mr. Kiley said, the authority's board will probably be asked to raise tolls on the bridges and tunnels of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, an M.T.A. subsidiary, for the first time since April 1982. Tolls that are now $1.25 would be raised to $1.50; those at 90 cents would be raised to $1.00.

With 740,000 more people working in November than in October, the national unemployment rate fell again, dropping from 8.7 percent to 8.2 percent, the lowest level since January 1982, the Department of Labor reported today. The last time the unemployment rate fell by that much was January 1983, when the decline was also five- tenths of a percentage point. Despite a warning that the jobless rate might be understated, the report was another sign that the yearlong economic expansion had continued into the autumn at a brisk but not boom pace. Economists expect it to roll on in 1984, possibly at a slower rate in the latter part of the year.