November 10, 1984

The Producer Price Index for finished goods, measuring industrial price changes that may influence what consumers pay later, fell by two-tenths of 1 percent in October, the Labor Department reported today. It was the third successive monthly decline. For the first 10 months of 1984, the index rose by a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.5 percent. That pace was more than the 1983 rise of six-tenths of 1 percent but still short of the acceleration many economists expected for the second year of the business-cycle upswing. For the 12 months through October, the index was up 1.4 percent.

President Reagan today signed a major piece of environmental legislation that tightens Federal standards for the disposal of toxic wastes and extends controls to small companies. Environmentalists said they were pleasantly surprised by the President's action on the bill, which expands the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976. They said the bill was the only major environmental legislation enacted since Mr. Reagan took office on Jan. 20, 1981. In one of many legislative actions today, the President also approved a bill that for the first time protects the manufacturers of tiny computer chips from piracy by imitators.

In their first major attack in six months, leftist guerrillas fought their way into this central Salvadoran town today, before being driven back by army paratroopers in heavy fighting. According to army troops and residents interviewed here after the fighting ended this afternoon, several hundred guerrillas attacked Government military guard posts around the town at 2 A.M. Suchitoto is about 30 miles northeast of the capital of San Salvador in the center of some of the most contested territory in the country. Paratroopers and the army's First Brigade counterattacked at 6 A.M. and succeeded in driving the rebels out by noon. The town was defended by more than 300 heavily armed troops of the national police infantry battalion, equivalent to a regular army unit.

Losing its battle against coastal erosion, New York State is putting regulations into effect that will prevent shore-front homes from being rebuilt if they are destroyed by storms. The regulations, part of New York's Coastal Erosion Management Act of 1981, grow out of state and Federal efforts to discourage development of coastal areas subjected to periodic storms and erosion. They are scheduled to take affect in 1986, once the new zones are mapped and homeowners are notified. Thousands Voice Opposition But thousands of homeowners in coastal communities have already criticized the regulations at public meetings, charging that their property is being condemned without compensation. They have vowed to go to court to challenge the regulations.

The inspector general of the Central Intelligence Agency has called for the punishment of several agency officials for their roles in preparing a C.I.A. manual instructing Nicaraguan rebels in guerrilla warfare, Congressional and intelligence officials said today. The manual advises rebels to kidnap and ''neutralize'' Nicaraguan Government officials, a term interpreted by many within the United States intelligence community and by the Nicaraguan rebel leaders to mean assassinate. In a classified report on the manual submitted today to Congress, the inspector general ''recommends that five or six officials be disciplined,'' a Congressional aide familiar with the report said. The inspector general's report is to provide the basis for the disciplinary actions.