June 10, 1986

The Chancellor of Austria, a Socialist, resigned today, a day after Kurt Waldheim won election to the largely ceremonial post of President. The resignation of Chancellor Fred Sinowatz appeared to amount to an acknowledgment by the Socialists, who have governed Austria for 16 years, that the victory of the former United Nations Secretary General represented a severe political setback. Mr. Waldheim, the candidate of the rightist People's Party, won 53.9 percent of the votes Sunday compared with 46.1 percent for Kurt Steyrer, his Socialist opponent. Evidence unearthed over the last several months has raised questions about Mr. Waldheim's links to Nazi war crimes in World War II.

White House and Reagan Administration officials have concluded that although Syria's involvement in terrorism may be ''much more professional, much more deadly'' than Libya's, the evidence remains murky about Syria's direct links to recent acts of violence. The United States and the Western allies have failed to gather the same type of ''incontrovertible evidence'' against Syria as they say they have against Libya for recent terrorist incidents, according to Administration officials. As a result, they said, the White House, the State Department and the Defense Department are not seriously weighing a retaliatory move against Syria similar to the air strikes against Libya in April. 'Long History of Involvement' One ranking Administration official said that Syria's President, Hafez al-Assad, ''has a long history of involvement in terrorism.'' But, he said, the evidence against Syria ''is only circumstantial'' in the attacks on airports in Rome and Vienna last Dec. 27, the bomb explosion at a West Berlin discotheque on April 5 and the attempt to plant a bomb on an El Al Israel Airlines jetliner in London on April 17.

The insurance industry sharply criticized yesterday a measure enacted by the Florida Legislature mandating a 40 percent rollback in commercial premiums and making future price increases more difficult. Insurers say the law would make underwriting in Florida unprofitable and they feared other states would follow suit. ''It's a disaster, '' said William M. McCormick, chairman and chief executive of the Fireman's Fund Insurance Company. ''And if it spreads from Florida to other states, it would be a catastrophe.'' W. Minor Carter, vice president for government affairs at the USF&G Corporation, a major insurance company, added, ''This is a Draconian, onerous measure and I hope no other legislature would act as irresponsibly as the Florida Legislature.

They came to celebrate the intricacies of a brilliant legal mind. Two Supreme Court justices, along with dozens of Federal judges and lesser lights, assembled at a quiet ceremony in Manhattan yesterday to praise Henry J. Friendly, who died in March after 27 years and more than 1,000 written decisions as a judge of the Federal Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The man they came to honor had devoted most of his 82 years to the law - in Washington and later in New York, where he was a member of the nation's busiest and perhaps most influential Federal appeals court. But he remained mostly unknown to the general public during his long career - a giant who never entered the spotlight.

Crystal Warden sat on a ledge in the bright noon sun on East 20th Street yesterday, reading a paperback book titled ''Cops: Their Lives in Their Own Words.'' By the end of the summer, Miss Warden hopes to have accumulated enough experiences to add a chapter of her own. A 22-year-old sophomore at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Miss Warden was one of 130 college students who began training yesterday for the Police Department's new Cadet Corps. For two summers, the cadets will work in precincts, patrolling the streets with veteran officers and working with community groups. They will not be armed and will not make arrests. During the school year, the students will be trained three days a month.

An anonymous letter sent from Caracas, Venezuela, to the Manhattan headquarters of Merrill Lynch & Company in May 1985 was the key to piecing together the insider trading case that resulted in the guilty plea of Dennis B. Levine last week, according to a number of Government and outside lawyers involved in the case. When the one-page typed letter, maintaining that some of the firm's brokers in Caracas were engaging in insider trading, was received, the firm began a routine investigation. That investigation provided the Securities and Exchange Commission with essential information that led to the largest insider trading case the commission has yet uncovered, according to the lawyers. Most of the details involving the letter and subsequent inquiry were confirmed yesterday by Robert Romano, a lawyer for Merrill Lynch. Mary McCue, a spokesman for the S.E.C. in Washington, said that the commission would not comment. But lawyers with knowledge of the S.E.C.'s investigation who asked not to be identified confirmed that information provided by Merrill Lynch was critical in its success.

Like other national institutions of higher learning competing for top students, Fordham University has to sell itself. Unlike most other schools, it also has to sell the Bronx. ''Is it a hard sell?'' said Fordham's president, the Rev. Joseph A. O'Hare, who grew up in the borough's Tremont section. ''There's no question about it that in the perception of people outside and inside New York City, the Bronx is a dangerous place,'' ''Recruiters say this is a problem they have to address,'' he said. ''The best antidote is the people who come to school'' - from 30 states - ''and live here.''

The Supreme Court today invalidated Reagan Administration regulations that were designed to require life-prolonging medical treatment for newborn infants with severe handicaps. Associate Justice John Paul Stevens, in a plurality opinion joined by three other Justices, said there was no evidence that any hospitals had discriminated against handicapped infants or had refused treatment sought by parents. Hence, he said, there was no basis for Federal intervention in these sensitive treatment decisions, as required by the ''Baby Doe'' rules. Justice Stevens said Federal law did not require hospitals to treat handicapped infants without parental consent, or require parents to give their consent.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell nearly 46 points yesterday, the biggest one-day point loss in its history, as major investment houses, relying on computerized trading programs, sold shares heavily. They acted after discrepancies developed between the stock and the stock index futures markets. The debacle came just one session after the Dow, the market's most closely watched indicator, rose to a record level. But even at the time of Friday's high, Wall Street experts were leery, fearing that the blue-chip indicator had risen too much in relation to other gauges.

International The Mexican peso has lost 30 percent of its value against the dollar in the past six trading days. With Mexico's foreign reserves shrinking and its loss of crude oil revenues this year expected to reach $6 billion, the country is expected to run out of money to make interest payments. In the nation's capital, conjecture about Mexico's intentions regarding its $98 billion foreign debt is intense. [ Page A1. ] Central bankers meeting in Switzerland said they were reluctant to bail out Mexico again. [ D25. ] Vice President Bush will try to ease tensions with Canada during a visit this week, his aides said. But a dispute over Canada's lumber exports threatens to complicate the discussions. [ D8. ]

FOR more than a century, scientists have yearned to explore the bizarre effects expected to occur when matter is subjected to truly crushing pressures - pressures capable of changing the character of things and transforming even hydrogen, water and diamonds into metals. The time may finally have arrived when powerful new equipment and theories make such exploration possible. Recent developments in ultrahigh-pressure physics seem to presage a host of important discoveries, scientists at several leading laboratories believe. The main object of their work is to deepen scientific understanding of the nature of matter, which undergoes fundamental changes at extremely high pressures. Such knowledge directly benefits geologists and astrophysicists studying the dynamics of planets and stars. But high-pressure research may also yield far-reaching applications in the development of new chemical processes and solid-state electronic devices. Related technologies could pave the way to commercial exploitation of hydrogen fusion as a source of electric power.

Defense lawyers and Federal prosecutors have tentatively agreed to move the Federal corruption trial of Stanley M. Friedman and five other defendants from New York City to Hartford, officials involved with the case said yesterday. Court documents released yesterday also indicated that lawyers for Mr. Friedman may seek to undermine the credibility of the Federal Government's key witness in the municipal corruption case, Geoffrey G. Lindenauer, by questioning his ''mental state.'' They said they had information that Mr. Lindenauer, the former deputy director of the Parking Violations Bureau, had ''undergone a nervous breakdown at one point in recent memory.'' The tentative agreement on a site for the trial was reached last Monday, during a closed-door session in the robing room of Federal Judge Whitman Knapp.