March 19, 1984

After 40 years of almost continuous right-wing domination, Greece has lurched sharply to the left under Andreas Papandreou and his Socialist party that came to power in 1981. Under Mr. Papandreou, the country has adopted an aggressive foreign policy, clashing repeatedly with and criticizing the United States and its other partners in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and in the European Economic Community. While building new links with Eastern Europe, Mr. Papandreou has dissented from American condemnation of the shooting down of the South Korean airliner last September, has sought to create a nuclear-free zone in southeast Europe, has attacked the deployment of American cruise and Pershing missiles in Europe and has denounced United States policy in Central America. Anti-American Image Created A strong impression of anti-Americanism has been created - so strong, in fact, that some officials in Washington and other capitals have begun to fear that the Prime Minister intends to lead his country out of the Western alliance into a policy of neutralism. On occasion he has seemed to visualize himself as a Tito for the 1980's.

Melvin Belli's job is suing people, but these days, many of the people he is suing are lawyers who used to work for him - and the suits tend to be ugly squabbles over who stole whose clients, complete with charges of incompetence, slander and fraud. Mr. Belli, who is best known for his unsuccessful defense of Jack Ruby, the man who shot Lee Harvey Oswald, has over the last two years been involved in litigation with his former partner, Vasilios Choulos; his former managing attorney, William Maas, and several other lawyers who have left the firm. ''It is almost a King Lear kind of situation,'' said one former Belli associate. ''I think he has driven away everyone who was ever close to him.'' Despite the lawsuits and the high turnover among the lawyers in Mr. Belli's offices, his reputation as one of the nation's leading personal injury lawyers, the so-called ''King of Torts,'' continues to attract a steady stream of cases that he says are both interesting and lucrative.

Not far from the sandlot baseball diamonds where Joseph Austin taught them how to play - and, they say, how to live - ''Joe's Boys'' and their neighbors jammed a Queens playground yesterday to wish the coach a happy 80th birthday. The main gift from the grown-ups was the naming of the playground in Mr. Austin's honor. But another big tribute came from young Ed Moore, who gave the coach a complete set of 1984 baseball cards. ''He's the Pied Piper of Jamaica,'' said Mary Kalafatis, who raised a Joe's Boy of her own.

International Argentina's new Government is struggling to solve the nation's severe debt and inflation problems in the face of opposition from unions allied to former military rulers. (Page A1.) The Common Market, pushed near bankruptcy by disputes over farm subsidies, begins a crucial meeting in Brussels. (A3.)

It has become the pat explanation for why Texaco is buying Getty, why Standard of California is swallowing Gulf and why Mobil is bidding for Superior - oil is cheaper to buy on Wall Street than to explore and drill for. But can that be? Why does the market sell reserves of established oil companies for much less than the companies routinely spend to find new reserves? Would the market not close the gap so that it is not cheaper, or at least not much cheaper, to buy than to drill? ''Either you have to conclude that the whole financial community and oil industry is composed of idiots, or there is something wrong with that explanation,'' said M. A. Adelman, a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Indeed, many experts express skepticism about the explanation and offer their own. And some, like Professor Adelman, criticize the basic calculations used to support the contention that oil is cheaper to buy than to find.