August 30, 1985

A Federal district judge in Mississippi was indicted today on charges of accepting oil-well royalties as a bribe and lying to a Federal grand jury about his influence in a drug case. The grand jury accused Judge Walter L. Nixon Jr., chief judge for the Southern District of Mississippi, of accepting the royalties in exchange for ''official acts'' on behalf of a businessman whose son was later arrested on drug smuggling charges. Judge Nixon, the third sitting Federal judge in the nation's history to be indicted for activities related to judicial duties, pleaded not guilty and was released without bail. He immediately took a paid leave of absence.

''A comprehensive test ban will not reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world by one.

An article in Metropolitan Report yesterday about a report by a Columbia University trustees committee on the university's investments in companies with operations in South Africa gave the incorrect date of the committee's formation. It was formed in May 1984.

The Reagan Administration said today that ''a sharp deterioration'' in the situation in South Africa had caused an erosion of confidence in that country's financial stability, and that moves toward easing some apartheid restrictions had ''stalled.'' In a briefing for reporters called to deal with some seeming contradictions in the Administration's policy toward South Africa, a senior State Department official said the efforts by the South African President, P. W. Botha, to defuse the tensions and violence had only worsened the situation. The official cited the failure of a Botha speech on Aug. 15 to win the support of the country's black leadership. Urging Mr. Botha to make a clear-cut commitment to end apartheid, the official said, ''What is clearly needed is talking and negotiating and constructive signals to build a better climate, not jailing and beating and bombing and burning.''

Friday WORLD'S FAIR RETROSPECTIVE Picturephones, spanking new Ford Mustangs and visions of a future filled with moon buggies and factories on wheels - in short, the sights and sounds of the 1964-65 World's Fair in Flushing Meadows - would hardly seem like history to many who were there. But 20 years later, an exhibition of photographs, films, music and paraphernalia from the fair demonstrates the many ways in which the nation has changed since the days just following the New Frontier. The retrospective, entitled ''The Mighty Fair,'' is presented by the Flushing Council on Culture and the Arts and is open from 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. today and tomorrow and from 1 to 5 P.M. Sunday at the Flushing Gallery, 136-73 41st Avenue (between Main and Union Streets), in Flushing, Queens. Admission is free. Information: (718) 463-7700.