April 25, 1984

Despite a huge increase in the military category, factory orders for durable goods rose only eight-tenths of 1 percent in March, the smallest increase in three months, the Commerce Department said today. Without a 40.2 percent surge in the volatile sector of military orders, total manufacturing orders would have dropped 2.3 percent. Durable goods are products expected to last three or more years.

FIVE years ago the Greater New York Councils of the Boy Scouts of America began an experiment with 2,000 handicapped children to see if they could become scouts. The answer today is a resounding yes. More than 21,000 of the 75,000 scouts in New York City have some disability. Some are blind, some cannot hear, some are autistic; others are mentally retarded or physically handicapped, and some are both. Scouting officials also include in the program youngsters with learning disabilities, the neurologically impaired and those who are hyperactive or emotionally disturbed. But all are Boy Scouts, participants in the councils' Scouting for the Handicapped program, the largest of its kind in the country and one of the fastest-growing segments of scouting in the city.

Walter F. Mondale, saying ''the clock is ticking'' in the nuclear arms race, today proposed a freeze on military uses of space. In a speech laced with criticism of President Reagan, Mr. Mondale said the Administration's proposals to develop lasers and other weapons in space would ''dangerously destabilize'' relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. ''In this 1984 election you can determine what the year 2000 will be like,'' Mr. Mondale told students and teachers who filled an auditorium at Case Western Reserve University. Mr. Mondale's principal rival for the Democratic Presidential nomination, Senator Gary Hart of Colorado, also spoke in Cleveland today. He continued his attack on both Mr. Mondale and Mr. Reagan, outlining his ideas for an economic policy. (Page A18.)

The Scouting column in Sports Pages on Friday gave an incorrect title for Reggie Jackson's new book, published by Villard. It is called ''Reggie.''

At the moment, the city's exposition and convention center has a fairly straightforward name: the New York Exposition and Convention Center. In a telephone interview yesterday, Governor Cuomo suggested that by the time of its expected opening, two years behind schedule in mid-1986, the center have a different name, although he is not quite sure what it should be. ''It's not going to be the Brendan Byrne Arena,'' he said referring to the indoor arena in the Hackensack Meadowlands in East Rutherford, N.J., that was named after Mr. Byrne while he was Governor of New Jersey. ''It's not going to be the Hugh Carey Astrodome. It's not going to be the Mario M. Cuomo Palestra.''