September 16, 1985

Marion Craft, tending her African violets, and her husband, William, tinkering with his patio barbecue, seem happy in their retirement. But here in Lebanon, in rural eastern Connecticut, the Crafts are outlaws. They are summer people who stayed for the winter. ''We were served a cease-and-desist order on New Year's Eve - I cried all day long,'' said Mrs. Craft, 60 years old, as she and Mr. Craft, 74, shared iced tea flavored with mint leaves cut from their garden. ''I can't believe this is happening to us.''

Saudi Arabia went ahead with a decision to buy more than $4 billion worth of British fighter planes after President Reagan assured King Fahd that the United States would not object to the sale, Saudi sources said today. They said the Saudi King was concerned that the United States, Saudi Arabia's principal arms supplier, not be angered at his country's decision. The Saudis had decided not to wait any longer for 40 to 48 additional American F-15 fighters that had been promised them by Mr. Reagan last December, but whose sale was repeatedly delayed because of Israeli-backed opposition in Congress. The White House was informed during the summer, Saudi sources said, that the Saudis were considering buying two squadrons of 48 Tornado fighter planes and 30 Hawk trainers from Britain because of Washington's inability to proceed with the F-15 sale. After Mr. Reagan indicated in a letter to King Fahd that he sympathized with the Saudi predicament, the negotiations with Britain were concluded, the Saudi sources said.

For the American steel industry, imports remain a worry, but they are not the dominant issue they were a year ago when the President's program to control foreign shipments was announced. Today, the main problem is closer to home: The mills are caught up in a fierce battle among themselves for market share and are cutting each other up on prices. ''The complaint isn't about imports anymore; it's about domestic price-cutting,'' said Charles A. Bradford, steel analyst at Merrill Lynch. On the surface, there are signs of progress. After years of trauma, the major mills are trim and relatively efficient. The results of their effort to lower costs have been described as ''superb'' and ''amazing'' by analysts. The old complacent management cultures are gone, replaced by a competitive breed. Some companies have been turning a profit even with the rampant price-cutting.

A United States military crew was detained at gunpoint by Soviet troops in East Germany for about nine hours last weekend, the Pentagon said today. Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, who disclosed the incident on the CBS News program ''Face the Nation,'' said it was the ''third or fourth'' such episode recently. In March, an Army major, Arthur D. Nicholson Jr., was shot and killed by a Soviet sentry while on a reconnaissance mission in East Germany.

The usually unflappable senior vice president of a major New York bank sat in his Westchester home a few weeks ago watching television excerpts from a long-awaited speech by South Africa's President, P. W. Botha. Like many other people, the banker had expected Mr. Botha to be conciliatory and indicate that his Government would change its racial policies. But the banker was stunned - more by what he saw as Mr. Botha's pugnacious tone than by the words themselves. The banker turned to his wife and said, ''There's financial trouble ahead.'' Indeed there was. As weeks went on, more and more banks, fearful that racial tension would undermine the South African economy, refused to lend new money or renew maturing loans to any South African borrower. It caused a plunge in the value of the rand, South Africa's currency, and eventually forced the Pretoria Government earlier this month to take the drastic step of forbidding South African companies to repay billions of dollars of principal on their foreign debt for the rest of the year.