February 14, 1984

The United States said today that it welcomed some apparently conciliatory comments in the speech by the new Soviet leader, Konstantin U. Chernenko. American officials said the comments suggested that the door might be open to reviving a dialogue. Senior Reagan Administration officials said Mr. Chernenko's speech, which he gave after being chosen as the new General Secretary of the Communist Party, broke no major new ground. But they said it appeared to respond indirectly to President Reagan's call for a new ''constructive dialogue.'' Late this afternoon, President Reagan arrived at the Soviet Embassy in Washington and signed the condolence book for Yuri V. Andropov that was opened to the public this morning. The White House said Mr. Reagan signed this message: ''Please accept my condolences on the death of Chairman Andropov and convey my sympathy to his family.''

FOLIAGE is shaking in a tree to the left. It may be a monkey. No. A man with an ax is cutting branches, getting food for his buffalo. Another cut into Nepal's depleted forests. To the right, three heaping haystacks bob along the trail, seemingly under their own power. They evoke an old comedy - the Three Stooges, perhaps, trying to camouflage themselves? A change of angle reveals the girls underneath, carrying home straw for use as compost or fodder. And behind an older woman trudges along with 75 pounds of firewood on her back, the strap on her forehead supporting the load. More links in the chain that binds forests, food and people in Nepal. The chain becomes apparent on an 18-day, 200-mile trek around the Annapurna range of the Himalayas, which stand as a high symbol of a steadily worsening human dilemma: the need for food and fuel from an environment becoming less able to provide them. I came recently to Nepal to speak at a workshop of UNICEF, the United Nations Childrens Fund, about the third world's spreading shortage of firewood - the cooking fuel of half of humankind. Now, in the hinterlands, I get a close look at its remaining mountain woodland in a setting of stirring beauty and gentle, cheerful people.

The Coastal Corporation and the Houston Natural Gas Corporation ended their takeover struggle yesterday with a joint announcement that they had withdrawn their offers to acquire each other and had dropped all pending litigation. As part of the agreement, Houston Natural Gas paid Coastal $60 a share, or a total of $124.5 million, for the 2.08 million of its shares that Coastal had acquired. Coastal also got $15 million for its expenses incurred while the billion-dollar bids and counterbids raged in the last few weeks. Coastal's average price for its Houston Natural Gas stock was $46.95 a share, for a total of $97.4 million. Thus, its profit on the securities transactions was $27.1 million.

The United States, which had won only one medal in the first four days of full-scale competition at the XIV Olympic Winter Games, picked up two more today when Debbie Armstrong won the gold and Christin Cooper the silver in the women's giant slalom. The race marked the first time that Americans had ever taken the first two places in an Olympic skiing event. It also brought the first Olympic skiing gold medal to the United States since Barbara Ann Cochran won the women's slalom in 1972 at Sapporo, Japan. Meanwhile, the United States' medal hopes brightened on another front. Scott Hamilton of Denver was in the lead after the first of three days of competition by male figure skaters.

The Salvadoran Government lacks an effective mechanism for preventing the diversion of United States aid money, according to a confidential report prepared for the Agency for International Development. One result, according to the report, is that a Salvadoran importer can ''obtain foreign exchange for transfers to his offshore account.'' In addition, the report found that some Salvadoran businessmen were reporting ''that either political influence or payoffs are necessary to obtain timely financing for imports.'' The 100-page report was prepared by Arthur Young & Company, a private consulting company under contract to A.I.D., and completed in June 1983.