September 11, 1984

The State Department said today that the Reagan Administration decided this year not to discourage private American citizens and foreign governments from supporting Nicaraguan rebels. The department spokesman, John Hughes, said the decision was made after Congress refused to approve more money for the rebels, but he denied that the decision was made to circumvent Congress. ''Provided U.S. funds are not used, we do not discourage other countries from providing support, nor have we discouraged legal private U.S. contributions,'' Mr. Hughes said. A Change in Position Mr. Hughes's comments were the first acknowledgement by the Administration that its response to outside aid to the rebels was based on a high-level policy decision. Administration officials had previously said that any failure to take action against private groups aiding the rebels was the result of a breakdown in coordination between Federal agencies.

The Miss America Pageant got under way here today, a booming business whose formula for economic success is a shoestring budget and an army of volunteers. Thousands of people have come to this oceanside resort in anticipation. Hotels are swamped. The coronation of a new Miss America on Saturday will play to a standing-room-only crowd and an expected television audience of up to a third of the country's population. Pageant officials had been concerned that the controversy surrounding the publication of sexually explicit photographs of Vanessa Williams, who was picked as Miss America at last year's pageant, and her giving up of the title in July would dampen enthusiasm. But they now believe that the affair has increased interest in the event.

Remarkable successes in transplantation of cells into the brains of animals have encouraged the belief that the therapy may eventually become practical for the treatment of human illnesses. Until recently there seemed little hope of ever coping directly with such effects of aging as Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease or with other forms of brain damage, and most researchers still believe application of the new brain-cell transplant techniques to human patients remains distant. Nevertheless, the current work is promising enough that at least one medical team, a group in Sweden, has tried twice to treat severe cases of Parkinsonism by adrenal transplants and is preparing for further attempts. At a recent international conference in Lund, researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm described in detail for the first time the two human transplant efforts they conducted in 1982 and 1983. Key cells were taken from an adrenal gland near the kidney of each patient and, with a springlike device, were inserted near a portion of the brain whose loss of function was causing Parkinson's disease. Parkinsonism appears to result from the degradation of cells in tissue known as the substantia nigra, from which nerve fibers normally deliver a substance, called dopamine, into a neighboring part of the brain, the striatum. There the dopamine's role is to initiate voluntary muscular movements, and its absence leads to loss of control and the involuntary movements characteristic of the disease.

Israeli and American agents have broken a major international counterfeiting ring with the arrest of 10 Soviet Georgian emigres and the seizure of $13 million in bogus United States currency, officials in New York said yesterday. In simultaneous raids Friday, the Israeli police arrested seven men in Israel and the United States Secret Service arrested three in Brooklyn. All are Israeli citizens who emigrated from Georgia, a republic considered a center for organized crime in the Soviet Union. The counterfeit bills were seized in Israel, and none were distributed, said James D'Amelio, a United States Secret Service special agent who coordinated the raids with the Israeli National Police.

Alan J. Hirschfield is resigning as chairman and chief executive officer of the 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation, according to an announcement from him and Marvin Davis, the company's owner. A brief news release from the company said that Mr. Hirschfield would remain on its board and serve as a consultant. It also said that Mr. Hirschfield and Mr. Davis intend ''to form a partnership to pursue investment banking activities both in Los Angeles and New York.'' The resignation will take effect as soon as Mr. Hirschfield's successor is named, the announcement added.