December 8, 1983

The Joint Chiefs of Staff have begun drafting plans to redeploy the American Marine unit in Beirut away from the airport to safer ground in Lebanon or to amphibious vessels offshore, Administration officials said today. Officials said the plans had not yet reached the National Security Council, where they would be discussed with President Reagan, but they said the idea would be welcomed there. They cautioned, however, that no consideration was being given at this time to withdrawing the marines. The plans are being drafted in response to military, political and diplomatic pressures, the officials said, among them these: - Increasing uneasiness expressed by senior military officers over the Administration's course in Lebanon. The officers fear development of a situation like Vietnam in which political and military objectives would be vague, military forces insufficient or under restraint and public support lacking.

''To be back home still feels like a dream to me.

A whipping wind swept through lower Manhattan yesterday, a miniature tornado struck Times Square and lesser windstorms knocked around pedestrians on some street corners around town. Yesterday was one of the windiest days of the year, with gusts clocked as high as 54 miles an hour. Worth Street was closed between Lafayette Street and Broadway when a skyscraper's antenna wobbled dangerously in the wind. Trees fell and knocked out electricity for thousands of people on Long Island and in Westchester. But as blustery as the suburbs were, some spots in Manhattan may have had it worse. Even on relatively mild days the quirks of the architectural landscape can make the wind blow like a tiny typhoon. Umbrellas, hats and hairdos are destroyed, doors slam shut and pedestrians stagger to lampposts for support.

It began with a seemingly routine notification that a vacancy had been filled on the Mayor's Committee on the Judiciary. But a Sept. 26 letter to Mayor Koch from Presiding Justice Francis T. Murphy Jr. of the Appellate Division of the First Department of State Supreme Court in Manhattan touched off a sharply worded exchange. As a result, the Mayor reconstituted the committee yesterday. Two issues were at stake - whether the Mayor's power of appointment to the committee was absolute and whether its members broadly represented the city's population. The 27-member committee, created by a Koch executive order in 1978, recommends candidates for judicial vacancies. Thirteen members are appointed by the Mayor, six each are chosen by Justice Murphy and his counterpart in the Second Department, Justice Milton Mollen, and two by law- school deans, on a rotating basis. Until yesterday, the 25 members named by Mr. Koch and the judges served concurrently with the Mayor.

Plans to redeploy the Marine unit in Beirut away from the airport to safer ground in Lebanon or to amphibious ships offshore are being drafted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Reagan Administration officials said. They stressed that no consideration was being given to withdrawing the marines. The officials said the plans were being charted in response to military, political and diplomatic pressures, including increasing uneasiness among senior military officers over the Administration's course in Lebanon. (Page A1, Column 6.) A joyful hero's welcome was accorded to 1,800 marines and sailors as they returned home to Camp Lejeune, N.C. They are the survivors of the unit that lost 240 men in a bomb attack in Beirut in October. School bands played, and thousands of yellow ribbons floated from trees, telephone poles and car antennas. (A1:5.)