October 1, 1986

The United States and the Soviet Union announced today that President Reagan and Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, will meet in Iceland next week. The announcement came after Gennadi F. Zakharov, a Soviet employee of the United Nations, pleaded no contest to a spying charge in a Brooklyn court and was released. The Soviet Union also agreed to let two dissidents emigrate - Yuri F. Orlov, who has been in Siberian exile, and his wife and fellow dissident, Irina L. Valitova, who lives in Moscow. The White House referred to the prospective two-day meeting, Oct. 11 and 12 in Reykjavik, Iceland, as preliminary to a regular summit meeting in the United States that was agreed on in Geneva last November. The new summit meeting was supposed to be held this year, but a date has not been set.

A longshoremen's strike threatened to halt container-ship operations at major East Coast ports today. The dockworkers' union, the International Longshoremen's Association, called the strike at 12:01 A.M. today after failing to agree with shipping associations on a contract extension and on a variety of local issues. ''They all voted, from Maine to Norfolk, not to work,'' the union president, Thomas W. Gleason, told The Associated Press. ''It was a majority vote, almost unanimous.'' #40,000 Members in East The strike is the first walkout to threaten all major East Coast ports since a two-month strike in 1977, an industry official said.

Mayor Sharpe James today warned that he would not allow homeless families from New York City to remain at a hotel here after Oct. 15. The Mayor said he had been moved by compassion to authorize several displaced families to be housed temporarily at the Lincoln Motel on Broad Street, based on assurances the move would be for a short time. ''It was our initial understanding that these families would be housed at the Lincoln Motel for a short period of time, but this may no longer be the case,'' Mr. James said. ''We understand that displaced families from New York City may be permanently dumped in Newark, and I want to go on record setting a deadline after which total responsibility for the persons shall be assumed by their own city's administration.

In a sign that the economy faces at least several more months of weak growth, the Government said today that its index of leading economic indicators fell two-tenths of 1 percent in August. ''This is still a disappointing number,'' said Robert Ortner, Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs. The modest decline in the index, which is designed to predict the course of the economy, was its third drop in four months. After declines of one-tenth of 1 percent in May and two-tenths of 1 percent in June, the index rose a revised 1 percent in July.

In a move reflecting soft demand for books and the sharp inroads made by discounters, the Dayton-Hudson Corporation said yesterday that it would sell B. Dalton, the nation's second-largest chain of bookstores. With 777 outlets in 48 states, including 4 in New York City, B. Dalton had sales last year of $538 million, exceeded only by Waldenbooks at $565 million. But its earnings have slipped in recent years as it cut its margins to compete with discount stores, analysts said. And retail book sales have been flat generally this year, they added, because of the high prices of hardcover books and interest in new electronic products, particularly videotapes.