November 28, 1984

Treasury Secretary Donald T. Regan's tax proposal is being regarded here as less a plan for enactment than a bargaining chip in what is certain to be a prolonged battle with Congress and thousands of special interests over changes in the nation's tax system. Mr. Regan allowed as much today at the news conference announcing the plan. ''This thing was written on a word processor,'' he said. ''It can be changed.'' He said it was the Treasury's proposal, not the President's, and indeed President Reagan seemed to be keeping his distance from the study he ordered last January but saw for the first time only on Monday. In a statement, the President noted the length and complexity of the three- volume report and praised the Secretary for long and hard work. ''Over the next few weeks,'' he said, ''I plan to review the Treasury's recommendations carefully - along with public and Congressional reactions to them.''

A landmark building on Amsterdam Avenue that once housed widows of Revolutionary War veterans would become a low-cost hostel for overnight travelers under a proposal filed with the city yesterday. The proposal, by American Youth Hostels, a nonprofit group with more than 20,000 members in the city, was made to the Landmarks Preservation Commission. It would need approval from various city agencies, including the commission.

Automobile sales improved sharply in the Nov. 11- 20 period, the manufacturers reported here today. Sales by the six major companies jumped 28.8 percent in mid- November from the period last year. Industry analysts said the seasonally adjusted annual selling rate of 7.9 million was near normal, following a strike-induced slump that brought the rate down to 6.9 million early this month and the same level for all of October.

When Congress convenes in January, Republicans will hold the same 53-to-47 majority in the Senate they had in 1981, when they were a driving force behind President Reagan's dramatic legislative successes. But the mood and dynamics now at work among Senate Republicans, who are preparing to choose a new leader Wednesday, are so different from 1981 that many of the Republicans themselves predict Mr. Reagan will have much more difficulty getting his way in 1985 than he did then. In part this is because the Senate increasingly suffers from what Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, the majority whip, called ''legislative paralysis.'' That involves parliamentary stumbling blocks of filibusters and rump rebellions by which individual senators or small groups stall the work of the chamber, sidetrack major legislation or press their own special agendas. Indeed, ranking Democrats and Republicans are eager to vote institutional reforms to limit and focus debate, impose discipline, give the leadership more power and make the Senate a more manageable, effective body.

Six men have been arrested on charges that they kidnapped a leader of the Unification Church in Manhattan in September and tortured him until he agreed to pay a $1 million ransom, the F.B.I. said yesterday. The church leader, Bo Hi Pak, said he had been held for two days in a small house in Orange County and had been subjected to shocks with electric devices before being released. Two of the arrested men were identified by the F.B.I. as members of the Unification Church and friends of Mr. Pak. None of the ransom money was paid, said Lee F. Laster, an assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in announcing the arrests at the bureau's New York office in lower Manhattan.