September 8, 1984

She is the forgotten member of the Democratic quartet. With the unusual attention focused on the party's historic campaign - a floodlight illuminating Walter F. Mondale, Geraldine A. Ferraro and John A. Zaccaro - Joan Mondale is often asked about eclipses. Has Mrs. Ferraro eclipsed Mr. Mondale as the strongest member of the ticket? Has Mrs. Ferraro eclipsed Mrs. Mondale as the leading female star of the ticket? ''The whole thing is certainly making Joan Mondale take a back seat,'' said Daryl Glenney, a Washington campaign consultant. ''For the first time in our minds, the female can be the Vice- Presidential candidate, she doesn't have to be 'the wife' any more. That leaves the wife wondering what her role is.''

The nation's overall unemployment rate held steady at 7.4 percent last month, the level recorded in May and in July, the Labor Department reported today. Analysts said the report indicated that the economy, while still expanding, had moved into a new, slower phase and had exhausted its ability to produce more new jobs than there are job-seekers entering the labor force. In human terms, it means that the economy's 20-month recovery has stabilized and is no longer reducing the national unemployment rate. Even in New York City, New York State and New Jersey, where unemployment did decline last month, officials said the local economies were showing less ''zip'' than they did earlier in the year. (Page 42.)

As in a crude science-fiction film, the removal of asbestos from buildings involves a combination of the ordinary and the fantastic, of old-fashioned elbow grease and high technology. The process so bedeviled school systems and the state government in New Jersey this summer that about 20 schools were unable to open on schedule this week. The schools failed to obtain state certification that their asbestos-removal projects were complete. Asbestos fibers have been found to cause cancer if inhaled. At best, removing the material from buildings is complicated, expensive and dangerous. Some experts liken the proper procedures to those for handling radioactive materials in the nuclear industry.

Mexico announced today that it had reached agreement with its bank advisory group to stretch out repayment of much of its $66 billion in public debt over 14 years at lower interest rates. The agreement, announced by the Mexican Finance Minister, Jesus Silva Herzog, would constitute the most flexible restructuring of foreign obligations thus far granted to a Latin American debtor country. At a news conference here, Mr. Silva Herzog said that the agreement was ''in no way a panacea,'' but called it ''a relief, a breather and indisputably a step in the right direction.'' He said he hoped it would give support to other Latin America debtor countries in their negotiations with foreign creditors.

A senior Iranian official with close ties to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini has suggested that Iran's long-planned ''final offensive'' against Iraq may not take place anytime soon. The statement, by the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Hojatolislam Hashemi Rafsanjani, was believed to be the first in which a high-ranking Iranian official has openly talked about the timing of the ''offensive'' since Iranian troops began to mass on the border with Iraq last February. For months Western military analysts had predicted an imminent all-out invasion of Iraq, but Iran said nothing about the reports. 'Delay in Operations' In an interview broadcast by the Teheran radio Thursday, the Iranian official, who is the Ayatollah's personal representative on the Iranian Supreme Defense Council, was asked why there had been a ''delay in operations.''