April 11, 1984

Practically from the outset of the Reagan Administration's ''covert war'' against the Sandinista Government in Nicaragua, there has been confusion and controversy over American objectives. Periodically, President Reagan, reflecting divisions in his Administration, has fueled the argument with imprecision about his goals. The debate also flares with each increase of military pressure by American- backed Nicaraguan rebels. The latest furor has been set off by reports from Reagan Administration officials and members of Congress that Americans not only paid for but also supervised the rebel mining of Nicaraguan ports, prompting Nicaragua to go to the International Court of Justice seeking a legal order to halt the ''covert war.''

The Limited Inc., stepping up the pressure in its week-old tender offer for Carter Hawley Hale Stores, filed a statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday saying that it would solicit written consent from Carter Hawley's shareholders to remove the company's board of directors. The Limited also sought authorization for a special shareholders meeting of Carter Hawley at which to replace the directors. But Leslie H. Wexner, chairman and chief executive of The Limited, said that the shareholder consents would not be exercised if Carter Hawley either approved The Limited's two-step offer or an alternative one more favorable to its shareholders.

The board of the Consumers Power Company today cut the company's dividend on common stock to 35 cents a share, from 63 cents. The reduced dividend is payable on May 21. The utility also increased its estimate of the cost of finishing the second unit at its Midland nuclear plant to $3.95 billion, from $2.5 billion. Completion is now scheduled for December 1986.

It was a conspiracy in which the two key figures were continents apart and never met or exchanged words as they purportedly masterminded the smuggling of $1.65 billion worth of heroin into the United States. In fact, almost no illicit heroin was seized by Federal authorities, who filed charges on Monday against 31 men accused of participating in a massive drug and money-laundering conspiracy in this country and in Europe. The four-year investigation, according to Federal officials, destroyed a major money-making unit within the Bonanno crime family, one of New York's five traditional organized-crime groups. Federal prosecutors described the two key leaders in the conspiracy as Salvatore Catalano, who is reputedly second in command of the Bonanno family, and Gaetano Badalamenti, a high-ranking member of the Sicilian Mafia. F.B.I. Agent's Brief But except for one undercover agent in Philadelphia, there was apparently no direct contact between Federal investigators and the suspects. Aspects of the investigation were disclosed in a 341-page affidavit from a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, Charles J. Rooney, that was filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan.

The Challenger astronauts reached out with their long robotic arm today to catch a failing satellite, Solar Max, and take it aboard the 305-mile-high space shuttle for the first major repair job in orbit. ''O.K., we've got it,'' radioed Capt. Robert L. Crippen of the Navy, the Challenger's command pilot. Cheers and applause broke the expectant hush of Mission Control here. The mission had been plucked from the brink of failure after earlier frustrations. Terry J. Hart, the astronaut operating the 50-foot-long mechanical arm, grabbed the slowly rolling and wobbling satellite on the first try, locking on to a protruding knob the size of a fist. Then he hauled the 5,000-pound satellite into the shuttle's cargo bay, easing it into a cradle back near the tail section.