June 30, 1985

Fifth Avenue is glittering more brightly these days on both sides of the channel gardens in Rockefeller Center. That's because gilders from the company that has been regilding the center's art monuments for half a century have just finished the great panel over the main entrance to the Maison Francaise building and are now starting in on the cartouche and panel over the main entrance to the British Empire building, both on Fifth Avenue.

The hostages spoke with reporters on the Cable News Network yesterday morning when they thought their transfer to Syria was near. The interviews took place in a schoolyard, where the hostages were guarded by militiamen carrying rifles and automatic weapons. Here are excerpts from those interviews: Stewart L. J. Dahl Virginia I think it's calmed down a great deal. It's been a matter of keeping your head together and taking each moment as it comes, weighing each thing. He [Robert Dean Stethem, the Navy diver who was killed in Beirut] was my friend. It was kind of sad. They thought we were marines, combat types. We're noncombat. We were pulled off the plane at the second Beirut landing and we've been safe ever since.

THE Federal Bureau of the Census, which chose this city to test new ways to count noses, has run into unexpected problems, not the least of which is that nothing - not even the Census - takes a back seat to politics here. The test was tried because many urban areas, especially those in the Northeast, complained that 1980 census figures fell short. In 1970, the census reported 260,350 people living in Jersey City; 10 years later, that number had dwindled to 223,532. The bureau picked Jersey City to confront the grumbling and verify its figures by introducing a new two-stage procedure. In early March, residents received short questionnnaires requesting basic information, such as age, race and marital status. This month, 20 percent of those who responded were mailed additional, more detailed questions about occupation, education and income. (In the 1980 census, households received either a long or a short form.) Anticipating that 60 percent of Jersey City's residents would mail back their questionnaires, the bureau expected to get a quick population tally, once census-takers visited households that failed to respond. But only 38 percent returned the short forms.

An internal Defense Department report concludes that security programs at most of the nation's 14,000 military contractors are so weak that they do little to deter espionage. Spying is so easy for employees of most companies, the report says, that ''a supermarket employee may encounter far more difficulty stealing a loaf of bread.'' The 250-page study says the Defense Department should make wholesale changes in its security programs. It does not contain specific recommendations, but it makes the point that the present regulations, even when fully enforced, do not effectively inhibit spying and need to be reconceived.

THE Suffolk County Legislature, which has been battling in the courts with County Executive Peter F. Cohalan over emergency planning involving the Shoreham nuclear power station, appears to be in a central position in deciding whether the $4.2 billion plant will open. Now the debate is likely to turn on the question of whether operation of the reactor at 5 percent of full power, which has been tentatively approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission but has been challenged in court, would be reason for the legislators to proceed quickly with approving an emergency plan. Ironically, the legislator who has argued most vigorously that the Shoreham plant poses no threat to public safety has been the first to say that low-power testing makes an emergency evacuation plan for residents around the plant a top priority. ''We would have a nuclear power plant ongoing, and therefore we should have an evacuation plan for the people,'' said Louis Howard, a Republican from Amityville and the Legislature's Presiding Officer. Mr. Howard said he was ''waiting for what I think is the propitious moment'' to bring to a vote a resolution directing the county to participate in an emergency drill for Shoreham.