April 5, 1986

An international inquiry into the explosion Wednesday aboard a Trans World Airlines jet just before it landed in Athens now seems to center on two questions: Who is the woman who sat in seat 10F on an earlier leg of the plane's journey, and did she plant the bomb that later exploded under the seat? Some of the investigators among the Greeks, Egyptians, Italians and Americans working on the case believe that the passenger might be a woman with a Lebanese passport who traveled under the name May Elias Mansur. The authorities have said she boarded the Boeing 727 Wednesday at its point of origin in Cairo and got off at the first of two stops that day in Athens. The bomb exploded almost six hours later as the airliner was about to make a second landing here returning from Rome. #4 Americans Killed The explosion, which killed four Americans and wounded nine other people, occurred under seat 10F just before the plane landed safely at the airport. The woman assigned to seat 10F at the plane's point of origin was listed on the passenger manifest as May Elias Mansur.

The Reagan Administration has drafted a legislative proposal that would sharply limit the damages people could collect from the Government for injury or death caused by the negligence or misconduct of a Federal employee. Administration officials said they wanted to impose similar limits on lawsuits against Government contractors, which supply thousands of products ranging from office machines to airplanes and submarines. The draft bill, distributed to Federal agencies this week, states that the damages awarded by Federal judges to people suing the Government ''have become increasingly unreasonable and unfair.'' In part, it says this is because the Government is perceived as financially having a ''deep pocket.''

The Soviet Union, after months of delay, told the United States today that it was ready to discuss the date for talks expected to center on the next Soviet-American summit meeting, Administration officials said. The officials said the United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Arthur A. Hartman, was told by Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze today that Anatoly F. Dobrynin, the Soviet Ambassador, will be empowered next week to work out a date for Mr. Shevardnadze to meet with Secretary of State George P. Shultz in Washington. Mr. Dobrynin, who is leaving as Ambassador and has been in Moscow, was recently elevated to the Soviet leadership by being named the Central Committee secretary in charge of foreign relations with non-Communist countries. The State Department said today that Mr. Dobrynin would see President Reagan on Tuesday at the White House and would have meetings with Mr. Shultz.

A new era in American agriculture opened Oct. 9, 1985, when a 27-year-old veterinarian, Roger Saline, injected a live, genetically altered virus into 250 piglets on a farm in Bradford, Ill. It was the first time that a living organism created by the techniques of genetic engineering was used in the field. This event could eventually rank alongside the introduction of tractors and insecticides in the development of modern agriculture. It opens the way to huge increases in production and new diversity in American farming through the capability to manipulate the basic genetic structure of plants, animals and microscopic organisms.

Although the dollar has fallen sharply in recent months, business executives say foreign competitors have not raised prices as much as expected. With foreign producers battling so hard to hold on to their market share, many economists and executives say it will be difficult, if not impossible, for the United States to regain the jobs and the sales lost as a result of years of cheap imports. May Take Years to Recover Indeed, many experts say, even with a weaker dollar, it will take years to reverse many of the negative effects of the strong dollar: the two million or more jobs lost, the market share captured by imports, the weakening of whole industries. Executives were confident a few months ago that the weaker dollar would quickly force up the price of imports, causing them to relinquish market share on everything from Japanese cars to Italian shoes to German machinery. Although the dollar has fallen about 25 percent against a basket of 17 currencies, many executives say foreign producers have not raised the price of their products by anywhere near that amount.