September 12, 1986

In the latest legal skirmish between the wealthy Hunt brothers and a Federal district judge in Dallas, three Federal appeals court judges today ordered the transfer of the Hunts' bankruptcy case from New Orleans to Dallas. The judges for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit - Alvin B. Rubin, Thomas M. Reavley and Henry A. Politz - deliberated less than an hour before issuing their written ruling, which was offered without explanation and which ordered the Federal clerk in New Orleans to transfer the bankruptcy papers immediately to Dallas. Attorneys for the Hunts left the courthouse today immediately after the ruling. A spokesman said no decision had been made on appealing the decision to the United States Supreme Court. Edwin A. McCabe, a lawyer for the Hunts, said last week that the Hunts were likely to take that course if they lost lost the appeal to the Fifth Circuit.

As he takes over as acting chief executive of CBS Inc., Laurence A. Tisch is facing a raft of nettlesome problems that have rocked the company for the last two years. The CBS television network, the company's crown jewel, is suffering from weak demand for advertising time and lackluster ratings. The publishing group is also in the doldrums because of soft advertising demand. The company is heavily laden with debt, the result of a billion-dollar stock buyback to thwart an unwanted takeover bid last year from Ted Turner, the broadcasting entrepreneur. And morale is down because of recent cost-cutting measures, including layoffs, and from the turmoil in the executive suites that culminated Wednesday in the resignation of Thomas H. Wyman, the company's chairman and chief executive. Mr. Tisch, whose background is largely that of a financier, could turn his lack of experience in network broadcasting to his advantage by breaking some industry traditions and imposing new rules, analysts said yesterday. Mr. Tisch, CBS's largest stockholder, is the chairman of the Loews Corporation.

Friday JAPANESE FOLK SINGER Chikuzan, the folk singer, has spent most of his life wandering through the countryside of northern Japan, singing and playing his three-stringed banjo-like instrument called the tsugaru shamisen for appreciative audiences of farmers and villagers. In recent years, his reputation has spread to the country's major cities; some have compared him to a Japanese Leadbelly. Tonight and tomorrow night at 8, Chikuzan - now blind and nearly 80 years old - will perform at the Japan Society, 333 West 47th Street. Tickets are $15 for Japan Society members; $20 for nonmembers. Information: 832-1155.

International Hosni Mubarak and Shimon Peres met alone for three hours in Alexandria in the first Egyptian-Israeli summit meeting in five years. The talks were said to have centered on the two sides' differing approaches to the Palestinian issue. President Mubarak said Egypt would return its ambassador to Israel. The talks are to continue today. [ Page A1, Column 6. ] Poland said it would free by Monday all 225 prisoners being held for their political views and activities. [ A1:5. ]

THE only leaves that were blowing in the brisk breeze that was heralding the fall season on Fifth Avenue were those of a pamphlet being thumbed by Weekend Walker. Walker, who makes every respectable New York scene, was getting the advance briefing about Sunday's New York Is Book Country, the event that proclaims the pre-eminence of Manhattan, and of Fifth Avenue in particular, as the dissemination center of books. Walker was excited, as he is every year, because a book walk is the best of strolls, what with its opportunities to break step and browse. Even when there is no fair, he often patrols the Fifth Avenue route between 48th and 57th Streets, stopping at the stores on side streets and avenues. He had visited the Gotham on West 47th Street, that shrine for all serious book lovers, and was about to enter Barnes & Noble, on the corner, when up the avenue he spotted his aristocratic, literary friend, Phineas Typo, leaving Scribner's, across the street. ''Hey, Typo,'' he hollered, with characteristic lack of inhibition. ''They're doing it again, that book fair, Sunday, 11 A.M. to 5 P.M., it says here. Books, curb to curb, building line to building line. Listen, 175 booths, 150 publishers, small presses and large presses, booksellers, all to plug books and reading.''