May 29, 1986

The Administration will soon propose an increase of one-half of 1 percent in Medicare payments to hospitals for the treatment of elderly or disabled patients, Federal health officials said today. The proposed increase, for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1, is substantially less than the increase needed to keep pace with inflation, according to hospital administrators and advocates for the elderly. But officials at the Office of Management and Budget, who spoke on condition that they not be identified, contend that data on hospital costs would actually justify a freeze or a slight reduction in the payments to hospitals. The new rates are to be announced later this week and published Monday in The Federal Register for public comment. The final rules must be issued by Sept. 1 and would apply to all Medicare patients discharged from hospitals after Oct. 1.

After almost three weeks of hard bargaining here, the leaders of the main Nicaraguan rebel organization were reported today to have reached an accord under which civilian officials will be given greater control. Rebel sources in Miami and Washington say the agreement appears likely to resolve a long power struggle that threatened to split the rebel front, which is named the United Nicaraguan Opposition. The rebels, known as contras, are seeking the overthrow of the Nicaraguan Government, which took power in the 1979 revolution that toppled the dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle. Democrats Strengthened The rebel sources cautioned that the the effect of the accord would depend on the willingness of rebel officials to put aside their differences and carry out its terms.

The Administration said today that it had indefinitely postponed studies on a possible site for a nuclear waste dump in any of 17 states in the East and Middle West. The Administration also announced that President Reagan had decided that the first repository should be built at one of three Western sites, in Texas, Nevada or Washington. The first repository is to begin receiving waste in 1998. In January the Energy Department identified seven states as potential sites for the second disposal area: Maine, New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

An agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation testified today that Ronald W. Pelton had admitted selling secrets to the Russians that were ''enormously costly'' and ''harmful'' to the United States. The agent, David E. Faulkner, said Mr. Pelton, a former staff officer of the National Security Agency, told him that his Soviet contact was interested in ''what the U.S. was getting from Soviet embassies and what the U.S. was getting from its overhead network,'' apparently a reference to spy satellites. He said Mr. Pelton said Soviet agents were ''not particularly interested'' in information Mr. Pelton provided on the ability of the United States to monitor high-level ''command and control'' communications, and two other intelligence-gathering projects identified only as Projects C and D. Harmful Disclosures According to Mr. Faulkner, Mr. Pelton acknowledged that his disclosures about two other activities, Project A and Project B, were harmful, ''insofar as the budget was concerned.'' Mr. Faulkner said that he asked Mr. Pelton if the disclosures might endanger the lives of those who maintained the equipment in Project A and that Mr. Pelton had no response. Later, Mr. Faulker said, Mr. Pelton said, ''The bottom line was that, yes, it had been harmful.''

A lot of people have been calling Malcolm Forbes lately to ask - as innocently as possible - what he's doing on the Fourth of July. Some merely have their secretaries place a casual call to his secretary. But Mr. Forbes knows that they are, as he puts it, ''planting the seed.'' Naturally, the millionaire publisher and sportsman will not be grilling burgers in the backyard. He will be out on his yacht, the 151-foot Highlander, with its Gainsborough paintings and wine cellar and whirlpool and screening room and helicopter -perhaps the hottest nautical ticket of all the 40,000 boats expected in New York Harbor for the holiday.