May 25, 1984

President Reagan today praised the performance of William J. Casey as Director of Central Intelligence, but offered no comment on a Congressional report charging that crimes might have been committed in the 1980 Reagan Presidential campaign, which Mr. Casey directed. While the White House dismissed questions about Mr. Casey's possible resignation as ''highly farfetched,'' the President kept an engagement to visit the Director here in the pastoral setting of the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters. Walking side by side with Mr. Casey on the agency's well-guarded 219-acre campus, Mr. Reagan broke ground for an addition to the headquarters building and praised the work of the agency and its director as ''an inspiration to your fellow Americans.'' Evaluation Is Under Way Privately, White House officials assessed the political implications of the Congressional report, a two-volume study that called for the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate the behavior of Reagan officials in preparing for the 1980 debate with President Carter.

A Federal judge today announced a $48.5 million settlement of the civil suits stemming from the fire at a Stouffer's Inn that killed 26 executives. The families of 25 of the executives as well as the 14 people who were injured in the 1980 fire will share the award. The money will be paid by 12 corporations, including the Stouffer Corporation. Judge Abraham D. Sofaer of Federal District Court here, who announced the agreement today, said it settled all civil cases brought after the fire at the hotel in Harrison, N.Y. Neither the amounts that each defendant will pay nor the awards that each beneficiary will receive were announced. But a lawyer for some of the defendants, David G. Miller, said the families of two unidentified victims would receive ''well over $5 million each.''

Because of a transcription error, a dispatch from Bahrain Wednesday on the Persian Gulf conflict referred incorrectly to the Gulf Cooperation Council. Oman is a member; Jordan is not.

The American Telephone and Telegraph Company has decided against building a three-story communications museum that had been part of an agreement with New York City, a company spokesman said yesterday. In exchange for the museum and other public amenities, the company was granted permission to exceed zoning limits and add the equivalent of four extra floors to its new 36-story headquarters at 550 Madison Avenue, between 55th and 56th Streets. The musuem, which company officials had estimated would attract 750,000 visitors a year, was to be in the rear of the new headquarters John Geoghegan, media-relations manager for the company, said the change in plan resulted from the company's court-ordered divestiture of local operating companies and a consolidation of its offices. ''A lot of things have happened in the business,'' he said. ''In our divested state, our needs for space have changed.''

The Charter Company reported yesterday that it lost $36.2 million in the first quarter in contrast to earnings of $952,000 in the corresponding quarter a year earlier. Charter, an oil and insurance conglomerate that filed on April 20 for protection from its creditors under Federal bankruptcy law, added that it expected to report a ''substantial provision for losses'' in the second quarter that may result in ''a significant reduction or elimination of stockholders' equity.'' Charter executives also met yesterday with about 150 of the company's estimated 20,000 creditors in Jacksonville, Fla., Charter's headquarters.