January 20, 1986

For decades, when it came to marketing, Philip Morris Inc., was considered one of the best. The company's success in building its cigarette brands, particularly Marlboro, is legendary, and in the mid-1970's it also seemed to have found the marketing keys to the beer industry when it turned the Miller Brewing Company around. So, when Philip Morris bought the faltering Seven-Up Company in 1978, the consumer giant's marketing prowess was expected to dazzle again, bringing new life to the St. Louis-based soft drink company that was founded in 1929 as the maker of a headache remedy. But with 7-Up the Philip Morris marketing touch has apparently failed, and the subsidiary is now rumored to be for sale. The lemon-lime segment of the soft-drink business, a segment that 7-Up has always dominated, never appealed to American tastes the way colas do, leaving Philip Morris with what is essentially a niche product. And competition from Coca-Cola's Sprite and most recently from Pepsi-Cola's Slice, a lemon-lime soft drink with fruit juice, has eaten into 7-Up's leadership within that segment.

International An effort to cut U.S. interest rates and those of Japan, Britain, France and West Germany grew more likely after a meeting of Treasury Secretary James A. Baker and top economic officials of the other countries. Mr. Baker, other Treasury officials and Paul A. Volcker, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, met in London over the weekend with their counterparts. A high Treasury official said that the meeting welcomed the decline of the dollar ''to date,'' - a term he repeatedly emphasized -and that the Reagan Administration would like to see the dollar decline by more than the roughly 25 percent it fell from its peak last March. [ Page A1, Column 4. ] Control of Southern Yemen was claimed by forces loyal to its former President, a hard-line Marxist, in a six-day battle for control of the country,the Soviet Union's strategic toehold in the Middle East. In Aden, the capital, a radio announcement said an attempt by President Ali Nasser Mohammed al-Hassani to impose a dictatorship had failed, and that ''hired elements of power'' under him have been eliminated. [ A1:5. ]

Under a new program designed to reduce costs, physicians in Connecticut are required to obtain approval from a central office before admitting many elderly patients to hospitals under the Federal Medicare program. Without advance approval, patients entering the hospital for nonemergency care can be required to pay their own bills, rather than having Medicare pay, according to hospital officials. In emergency admissions, approval must be obtained within two working days. The new system, known as preadmission certification, seeks to determine in advance whether a patient's condition warrants hospitalization, or whether it can be adequately treated in a less costly manner, such as by visits to the hospital as an outpatient, according to those who administer the Connecticut program.

Twenty years after the Central Intelligence Agency was all but banished from American campuses, the C.I.A. says it has re-established its ties and is receiving research and advice from a growing number of university professors. Robert Gates, the Deputy Director of Intelligence, said the agency had sought to accelerate a trend, begun under President Carter, of soliciting help from ''the best minds in the country.'' But the C.I.A.'s dealings with professors have been challenged by critics in Congress and within the universities as a threat to the independence of academic research. Memory of the Shah The new emphasis on seeking outside viewpoints was prompted, in part, by a review of past intelligence failures, Mr. Gates said. Some of these, such as mistaken predictions in the 1970's about the future of the Shah of Iran, could be traced, he said, to the development of a ''U.S. Government perspective.''

THE idea of Reggie Jackson - showdowns with fastball pitchers, home runs hit far into the night, bat dropping to the dirt because he knows it's gone - still conjures one of the most powerful images American sports has to offer. But this is the winter before Reggie Jackson turns 40 years old, meaning that he and his team, the California Angels, are preparing for a new phase. This, above all, has been consuming Jackson. The Angels have already told Jackson that he will have to accept a reduced role this coming season. In fact, said Jackson, they first told him there would be no role for him, not in right field, not even as a designated hitter.