December 21, 1983

Construction of new housing rose by 6.4 percent last month, rebounding from a two-month decline and putting such building activity 29 percent above the period a year ago, the Commerce Department said today. Work was started on new housing at an annual rate of 1.76 million units in November, compared with a rate of 1.65 million units in October, the department said. The new figures included gains for single-family homes and buildings with two to four units, and a decline for housing with five or more units.

Transcript of news session, page A22. WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 - President Reagan said today that he envisioned the role of United States marines in Lebanon as moving in behind the Lebanese Army to provide security as it sought to expand its control throughout the country. At a news conference, Mr. Reagan said the objective of the American troops, joined by other participants in the multinational force, was to ''try to achieve some stability and maintain order'' as the Lebanese Army expanded its role. After the news session, an Administration official said the President was not offering a broader definition of the role of American troops in Lebanon. He said Mr. Reagan was describing the current situation of the multinational force stationed in Beirut while the Lebanese Army seeks to move into the Shuf Mountains to the southeast.

Every day for two years, a contingent of New Jersey state troopers has come to a makeshift command post in the basement of Town Hall here, waiting for the tip that will crack their biggest investigation in a half-century. Eight-tenths of a mile from the tiny nerve center is the spot where a highly decorated state trooper, Philip Lamonaco, then 32 years old, was shot eight times and killed on Dec. 21, 1981, during an apparently routine traffic stop on a stretch of Interstate 80 that cuts through desolate hills and farmland near the Pennsylvania border. In the two years since then, the state police have implicated the remnants of a New England radical group - the Sam Melville/Jonathan Jackson Unit - in the murder. Four men and two women are being sought. The hunt has stretched nationwide and into Canada. Police officials say the hunt has cost $1 million.

Mark Helprin is the author of ''Winter's Tale'' (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich). ABOUT 30 years ago, when I was a small boy, I figured out that I was unable to appreciate material objects in a normal fashion. My heart did not leap at the sight of a wrapped present, and soon after opening it I wanted neither it nor something else to want after it, because it was clear to me that things in themselves, when they are not symbols, do not have the power to make anyone happy in a decent way that will last. In the strange position of a child who wanted no presents, I wondered what the approaching Christmas would be like, especially since I realized that because I was Jewish the religious option (certainly the finest and in America the most neglected part of this holiday) was simply not open to me. It seemed as if I would pass through that Christmas as if through a vacuum, and I thought there would be nothing for me. But I was wrong.

Texts of House subcommittee's report and of dissent, page A18. WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 - President Reagan said tonight that he did not think Gen. Paul X. Kelley, Commandant of the Marine Corps, ''was attempting to cover up for anyone'' when he testified before Congress about the destruction of the Marine headquarters in Beirut by a terrorist truck bomb on Oct. 23. A report issued Monday by a House subcommittee was highly critical of the Marines and said the testimony given by General Kelley and other Marine Corps and Administration officials ''was found to be often inaccurate, erroneous and misleading.'' It added, ''While not intentionally misleading, this testimony hindered the subcommittee and delayed its inquiry.''