October 7, 1986

Ten key associates of Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr. were indicted today on Federal fraud and conspiracy charges as hundreds of law-enforcement agents raided the political extremist's headquarters in Virginia. The Justice Department said several individuals named in the 117-count indictment were members of the ''inner circle'' of advisers to Mr. LaRouche, a three-time Presidential candidate who espouses eccentric views and who is said to be under investigation himself. Termed a 'Political Trick' The indictment, returned in Federal District Court in Boston, charged the 10 individuals, two corporations and three campaign committees tied to Mr. LaRouche with involvement in a scheme that raised more than $1 million through fraudulent credit-card billings. Prosecutors said the account numbers were obtained when people bought subcriptions to publications controlled by Mr. LaRouche or offered contributions to his political organizations.

THE feeling of being in control, of having a say over what happens in one's life, has far-reaching consequences for physical and mental health, for achievement at school and work, and even for sex, researchers are finding. While psychologists since Alfred Adler have held that a sense of mastery over one's fate is a key to psychological health, the new work is refining the concept through careful studies and extending it with a new precision. Researchers are finding that the sense of being in control, and the desire for such control, are more crucial and pervasive aspects of personality than psychologists had previously realized. Increasing the sense of control among elderly men and women living in convalescent homes made them happier, increased their alertness and -perhaps most dramatically - lowered their mortality rate, over a period of 18 months, by 50 percent, compared with residents in the same homes who did not get the experience of increased control. The increased control came from simple changes, such as allowing the convalescent home residents to decide what they would have for meals, when the phone would ring in their rooms and how the furniture should be arranged.

Late one steamy night this summer, a well-known Indian politician picked up his pistol and stormed into a neighborhood telephone office, demanding to know why his call to Bombay had not gone through. Protesting operators in Delhi then staged a strike, and the army had to be called in to run the capital's central exchange. The walkout ended a couple of days later after telephone officials said that the politician, Prakash Chand Sethi, had apologized. But by then Mr. Sethi, a Member of Parliament and a former Cabinet minister, had been elevated to the status of a folk hero in the eyes of those who depend on one of the worst telephone systems in the world. $3.2 Billion for Upgrading The outlook for improvement is poor. The Government plans to spend $3.2 billion to upgrade the telephone network between now and 1990 -''hardly enough to maintain the present system, let alone modernize it,'' according to one official.

The general level of care in New York City hospitals is still regarded as among the best in the world. But the stress caused by the rapidly changing needs and demands in the hospitals is resulting in treatment that in some cases does more harm than good. The adverse effects from this stress range from unnecessary infections to, in a small number of cases, patients being killed by the treatment given to combat their illness. An examination of conditions at hospitals in the city reveals a striking paradox. There is a high level of dedication in the vast army of health workers, and their technological capability is stunning compared with just a few years ago. At the same time, there are signs everywhere of a system struggling against pervasive shortcomings.

Secretary of State George P. Shultz initially opposed the expulsion of 25 members of the Soviet Mission to the United Nations whom the United States identified as intelligence operatives, according to Administration officials. The officials also said Mr. Shultz eventually persuaded President Reagan to delay the move after it emerged as a stumbling block in negotiations over Nicholas S. Daniloff, an American journalist who was being held in Moscow. The 25 diplomats, identified by Federal agents as the Soviet Union's most important intelligence operatives in New York, and were ordered on Sept. 17 to leave the United States by Oct. 1. But officials said that at the urging of Mr. Shultz, President Reagan subsequently agreed to let 11 of the intelligence officers remain in this country for two additional weeks as a ''grace period.''

Long Island's highways, already the most crowded in the New York suburban area, are becoming dramatically more congested each year, and neither a short-term nor a long-term solution is in sight. The region's transportation troubles, experts say, could threaten both the quality of life and the economic dynamism of Nassau and Suffolk Counties. ''The situation is desperate and getting worse,'' said James Larocca, president of the Long Island Association, the area's main trade organization. ''Studies show that by the year 2000 we could have stop-and-go traffic on many roads 15 hours a day.'' Indeed, the period once known as ''rush hour'' has already widened to include a large chunk of time. ''On the Long Island Expressway in Nassau County,'' said the regional planning engineer for the State Department of Transportation, James Kuzloski, ''the difference in traffic during the rush hours and the rest of the day is no longer very significant.'' One reason, he said, is that most of the trucks travel during off-peak hours.

In a pioneering operation, a team of California surgeons has removed a 23-week-old fetus from his mother's womb, successfully operated to correct a blocked urinary tract and then returned the unborn baby to the uterus and sewed the womb back up. Nine weeks later, Baby Mitchell was born alive and well at a Texas hospital near his parents' home. Last week, a few weeks after his first birthday, Mitchell was back in San Francisco for minor surgery that completed repairs on his urinary tract. According to Dr. Michael R. Harrison, the pediatric surgeon from the University of California at San Francisco who led the team, Mitchell would have died in the uterus without the surgery. ''Today he's doing fine,'' said Dr. Harrison. ''He may have some kidney problems in future, but I'm confident he'll do O.K.'' Dr. Harrison is scheduled to present the first full medical report of Mitchell's case to the American Academy of Pediatrics at its meeting in Washington later this month.

Mortgage rates fell sharply in September, to the levels of last spring, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board reported yesterday. It was the third consecutive decline and the first time since May that both fixed- and adjustable-rate mortgages declined. The average rate on fixed-rate loans dropped to 10.5 percent, from 10.84 percent, between early September and early August, the bank board said in Washington. In May, the rate had fallen to 10.47 percent. It was 12.65 percent a year ago.

Companies BankAmerica has received a merger proposal from First Interstate of Los Angeles under which the troubled San Francisco bank would be acquired through a complicated stock swap. BankAmerica said its board had considered the offer and asked for more information. If the deal occurs, the nation's second-largest bank would be taken over by the ninth largest, creating an institution's whose assets would rival those of Citicorp. [ Page A1. ] Carl C. Icahn offered to buy USX for $31 a share in cash, or a total of about $8 billion. The acquisition would be the third-largest takeover in U.S. history. USX, the former U.S. Steel, declined comment on the offer, which followed weeks of takeover speculation. The investor has turned a recent acquisition, T.W.A., into a profitable airline. [ D1. ]

Mayor Koch, the New York City teachers' union and a leading Protestant church group expressed support yesterday for the distribution of contraceptives at nine high-school health clinics. But Governor Cuomo said he wanted more time to consider the question. And a spokesman for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, Msgr. Peter Finn, said a detailed statement opposing the distribution of the contraceptives in high school clinics would be released today.

The majority leader of the House of Representatives said today that House Democrats were ready to delay a resolution of arms-control issues to avoid tying President Reagan's hands before he meets with Mikhail S. Gorbachev. The majority leader, Jim Wright of Texas, said a confrontation on the arms issues within the Congress and between the Congress and the White House could be put off until after the Iceland meeting this weekend and after the regular summit meeting that is expected to follow. ''I believe we can find a way to have a modus vivendi to allow him to go to the summit without feeling that he had been repudiated publicly by Congress,'' Representative Wright told reporters. ''We have indicated to the President that we would be willing to do that. I think this is a means of accommodating him and proving to the world that we are willing to set aside our internal disagreements.

Unesco's Director General, who has been at the center of a dispute over how the organization has been run, said today that he would not seek a third term of office. The present mandate of the Director General, Amadou-Mahtar M'Bow of Senegal, as head of the 159-nation United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, expires in November 1987. The unexpected announcement was made at a closed meeting of Unesco's governing 50-nation Executive Board. It ended months of growing concern among Western and other member countries that Mr. M'Bow, a 65-year-old former Senegalese Education Minister, would run for a third six-year term, with a good chance of re-election.