August 22, 1984

A report in the Convention Journal column yesterday about blacks at the Republican National Convention misidentified Samuel R. Pierce Jr. He is the current Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Egypt's suspicions that Libya was responsible for the mining of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Suez are now ''almost confirmed,'' according to a senior Egyptian military official. He said speculation had focused on one Libyan ship in particular that was believed to have dropped the mines. (Page A1, Columns 5-6.) Heavy fighting in Tripoli, Lebanon, erupted between Sunni Moslem fundamentalists and Syrian-backed militiamen. By nightfall, both leftist and rightist radio stations were saying that as many as 30 people, most of them civilians, had been killed and 125 people wounded. (A3:4-6.)

The American Telephone and Telegraph Company told the Federal Communications Commission today that it would be early next year before it reduces to what it considers an acceptable level the huge backlog of unfilled orders from business customers for voice- and data-transmission services. The smaller backlog of orders for Wide Area Telephone Service, or WATS, lines and for toll-free 800 numbers should be reduced to acceptable levels in two to three months, the company reported. Speaking to reporters after the session with F.C.C. staff members, Gus Blanchard, A.T.& T. Communications' vice president for network services, said that for the 30-day period ending Wednesday the company expected to see the first month-to- month decline in the number of private-line orders not filled on time. He defined ''on time'' as within 48 days of the order's being placed.

FOR the cook as well as the gardener, this is the sweetest time of the year. It takes Keatsian imagery to do justice to summer's bounty, to the lushness of produce in country gardens, at farm stands and in city markets. The ripe scents commingle, the metallic fragrance of rich, red tomatoes and spicy, fresh green herbs, mellow peaches, pungent onions, moist earth still clinging to their roots, and the sweetly haunting perfume of fresh, tender, pale green ears of corn. Summer squash, as yellow as clotted cream; dark green zucchini and delicate little orange zucchini blos Recipes are on page C6. soms; glossy, regally purple eggplant; dramatic crowns of white cauliflower; the profusion of scarlet, yellow and green sweet peppers; fat cranberry beans, streaked with pink and white; crisp string beans; fingers of okra: pyramids of fresh produce spill over market stalls. Though many of these vegetables are available in markets all year long, they never achieve the intensity of flavor that they have right now. The reasons are simple, if unromantic. Long, hot and sunny days increase the sugar content of ripening produce, while the short farm-to-market distance means locally grown products can be picked later and shipped faster, thus decreasing the conversion of sugar to starch.

LAST April, when Ellen Biblowitz told her obstetrician she wanted to undergo amniocentesis to make sure the baby she was carrying didn't have Down's syndrome, her doctor was unperturbed that she had just turned 34, one year under the age at which the procedure is customarily offered. ''In fact, he said he performed amniocentesis quite frequently on women much younger than I,'' she said. While waiting her turn at the Manhattan hospital where the test would be administered, she found herself chatting with expectant mothers in their late 20's and early 30's. As new data on birth defects have revealed that the incidence of Down's syndrome increases steadily as maternal age advances, rather than rising dramatically at about age 35 as had previously been thought, more and more obstetricians in New York have been offering amniocentesis to their younger patients as a means of reassurance. According to a recent study by Dr. Ernest B. Hook, head of the genetics section of the Bureau of Maternal and Child Health in the New York State Department of Health, the number of women having amniocentesis under age 35 nearly tripled between 1979 and 1982. ''The increase reflects those women having the test primarily because of anxieties,'' he said.