January 8, 1984

WASHINGTON PRESIDENT REAGAN'S talents for making the best of adversity were being tested last week. Like a man pulling rabbits out of his hat, he was trying to show a skeptical public and Congress that Administration policies in the Middle East and Central America were better than they looked. In Lebanon, there were signs of diplomatic progress that Mr. Reagan could conceivably use as a reason for withdrawing American troops, or at least redeploying them more safely. In El Salvador, there was marked military deterioration. Yet Presidential aides hoped that a bipartisan commission on Central America, headed by former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, could build support for increases in military and economic aid. The commission's seven-volume report, due this week, may seek more aid than Mr. Reagan is prepared to support. The commission was contemplating an extraordinary recommendation - $8 billion in aid to Central America over the next five years.

SO much attention has been lavished in recent decades on two of the three R's - reading and arithmetic - that the third, writing, has seemed all but forgotten in the nation's schools. But as evidence mounts that students at all levels in the educational cycle are doing very little writing and are deficient in the reasoning ability and critical-thinking skills that go hand-in-hand with good writing, the situation is beginning to change: the teaching of writing is assuming fresh prominence. This change, accompanied by a multitude of critical reports that reinforce its urgency, takes various forms and includes several new techniques. Several states, including New York, are adding a writing test to their requirements for a high school diploma, and more colleges and universities, including science-oriented institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, are establishing composition requirements. Florida's Legislature has even made writing proficiency a matter of statute, enacting a law to award extra money to districts that reduce class size in high school English courses and assign students at least one composition a week.

NEARLY a year ago, at the end of the football season, the idea first occurred to Lester Hayes, cornerback for the Los Angeles Raiders and observer of the human condition, that he may have made a remarkable discovery. He was in Honolulu, practicing for the Pro Bowl game, chatting with Mike Haynes of the New England Patriots. ''I didn't say anything,'' Haynes remembered. Haynes was about to become a free agent, but at the time he did not anticipate leaving the Patriots. So when Haynes mentioned that he was going to become a free agent, this was no great discovery. ''I didn't forsee any problems, really,'' Haynes said. Hayes talked briefly about the possibility of Haynes's playing for the Raiders, and that was that.

THE two decades after World War II have been called a ''golden age'' of growth and stability for the United States and the rest of the industrial world. ''In the 'Golden Age' of the 1950's and 1960's,'' said Angus Maddison, a British economist, ''economic growth in the advanced capitalist countries surpassed virtually all historical records.'' But, starting in the late 1960's, the United States economy was battered by a series of economic and political shocks that turned the golden age into an age of tin. First came President Johnson's ''guns and butter'' policy that bred inflation during the Vietnam war; then came President Nixon's surprise of Aug. 15, 1971, when he suspended convertibility of the dollar into gold, imposed wage-price controls and embarked on a highly stimulative fiscal and monetary policy. International financial chaos and the end of the Bretton Woods monetary system of fixed exchange rates hit the world economy in 1973, and the OPEC nations twice in that decade tipped the world into economic shock with monumental increases in oil prices.

A significant widening of the fighting appears to have taken place in South Africa's four-week campaign in southern Angola. The Government said today that in a three-day battle earlier this week, it had directly engaged Cuban troops and scored a major victory over them and their Angolan allies. Since a civil war erupted in Angola almost nine years ago, South African policy, as publicly expressed, has been to avoid direct combat with both the Angolans and their Soviet-supplied Cuban allies. In the same period, the Angolans have insisted that the Cubans play the role of a defensive rearguard.

He does not receive the publicity that Michael Jordan gets, or play with the flair of Kenny Smith, but if Coach Dean Smith has a favorite among his talented Tar Heels, he is Sam Perkins. Perkins, the quietly effective center who might be the most important player on the team, turned a close game into a rout as undefeated North Carolina beat North Carolina State, 81-60, today in an Atlantic Coast Conference game. He scored 22 points and helped shackle State's excellent forward, Lorenzo Charles. Before the matchup of the teams that won the last two national championships, North Carolina was acknowledged as having superior depth and was expected to win without much difficulty. But the game was at Reynolds Coliseum, State's home court, where the fans had been known to influence the outcome occasionally.

When Brook Steppe, the Indiana Pacers' guard, drove past Marvin Webster of the Knicks to hit a running, one-handed bank shot with 14 seconds left last night, the few remaining fans at Madison Square Garden groaned. Was the shot a game- winner? Hardly. Steppe's basket merely put the Pacers over the 100-point mark in a game that had long since lost its drama. In their most stunning exhibition of fast-break basketball of the season, the Knicks led by as many as 43 points en route to a 140-103 triumph.

The GovernorFires at Will Perhaps stung by complaints that he had not been sufficiently innovative during his first year in office, Governor Cuomo offered enough new directions last week to keep a compass needle spinning. In his State of the State Message, which opens the New York State Legislative session, Mr. Cuomo proposed 296 government initiatives, by his own count, designed to rebuild the Empire State. The shopping list was also intended to restore his standing among Democrats uncomfortable with his fiscal conservatism.

Deficits and Central America are stressed by eight Democratic Presidential aspirants. Page 26. House Democrats entered the 1984 campaign debate today by attacking President Reagan's record and proposing a detailed set of policy alternatives on major domestic and foreign issues. In a statement accompanying the 90- page report, Representative Gillis W. Long of Louisiana declared, ''We serve notice on Ronald Reagan that our party intends to focus its attack on three grave threats which cloud our nation's future: uncontrolled, massive budget deficits; the continued decline of public and private investment needed to spur growth and enlarge opportunity, and the accelerating nuclear arms race.''

President Reagan, opening a new Administration campaign against ''unruly behavior'' in schools, announced today that the Justice Department would file court briefs to help expand the rights of teachers and administrators to enforce school discipline. In his weekly radio address, Mr. Reagan also said the Department of Education would study methods to prevent school violence and help local school districts to use their resources to prevent school crime. White House officials said Mr. Reagan would receive a report Monday from an Administration working group on school violence and discipline, which Mr. Reagan's advisers said they hoped would be a key issue in the election campaign. In the Democratic response, Representative Robert T. Matsui of California said Mr. Reagan ''doesn't seem to understand that the lack of discipline is only a symptom of the deteriorating state of this country's educational system.''

A Soviet Air Force magazine published an article today that was implicitly critical of the fighter pilot who shot down a South Korean airliner four months ago. The January issue of the magazine, Aviation and Cosmonautics, also appeared to express disapproval of the conduct of officers on the ground who supervised the interception and destruction of the airliner. Two hundred and sixty-nine people were killed in the incident Sept. 1. The magazine said that the key person in any combat engagement is the fighter pilot and that it is up to him in certain circumstances ''to take the final decision,'' particularly when it involves identifying intruding planes and their country of origin.

The San Diego Padres acknowledged yesterday that they had wooed and won Rich Gossage with more than money. During three weeks of heavy pursuit, they surrounded the 32-year-old pitcher with the one thing he apparently did not get from the Yankees: a happy family. As a result, they signed Gossage to a five-year contract for more than $5.5 million, more than double his income in New York. And, although Gossage declined to criticize the Yankees or their chief owner, George Steinbrenner, he signaled the change in his mood by saying: ''I want to have some fun playing baseball. I want to be part of a team, part of the puzzle. Just 25 guys having fun playing baseball.''