November 10, 1986

The E. F. Hutton Group capped nearly 20 hours of board meetings over Friday and Saturday and the breakdown of talks on selling the brokerage house to Shearson Lehman Brothers Inc. with an announcement yesterday that it had elevated its president to the role of chief executive officer and was exploring a sale of its life insurance operations. People close to the company said Hutton had been informally studying the idea of selling its profitable insurance company, the E. F. Hutton Life Insurance Group, for some months. Hutton is asking about $300 million for it, these sources said. Insurance is sold through 300 specialized brokers in Hutton's regular retail offices and 4,500 independent insurance agents.

Militant environmentalists boarded two of Iceland's four whaling ships early today and opened key sea valves, sinking the ships in Reykjavik harbor, a leader of an antiwhaling group said. No crew members were aboard the vessels at the time. Today, as the scuttled vessels' prows poked out of the harbor's 35-degree waters, police divers confirmed that valves had been opened on the 434-ton Hvalur 6 and the 427-ton Hvalur 7. Paul Watson, president of the Vancouver-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, claimed responsibility for the sinkings. He said a team from his group had sneaked into the engine rooms of the vessels and opened the valves, sending sea water pouring into the holds.

Personal or Philosophical? The day after Mark Green won the Democratic primary for the Senate in September, Mayor Koch all but endorsed his Republican opponent, Alfonse M. D'Amato, saying he disagreed with Mr. Green's political philosophy. Mr. Koch declined to be specific, and Mr. Green said little about the political slap. ''It was personal, not philosophical,'' Mr. Green said last week, recalling that when he ran, unsuccessfully, for Congress in 1980, he criticized Mr. Koch at one candidates forum. ''I said he unnecessarily racially polarized the city. Koch was furious.''

Yes, the Giants won. No, they did not win pretty. In a rough game marked by enough punching and shoving and elbowing to satisfy a hockey crowd, the Giants outlasted the Eagles, 17-14, today. The Giants carried a 17-0 lead into the fourth quarter, then surrendered two touchdowns. In the final minute, Tony Galbreath of the Giants insured the Giants' victory by leaping and catching an onside kickoff. The Giants' defense made its usual big plays. Its pass rushers made seven sacks, three by Lawrence Taylor. Joe Morris ran for his usual big yardage, this time 27 carries for 111 yards and both touchdowns.

Edward A. Reynolds - ''Ed'' to his students - does not look or act much like a normal high school principal. Wearing a T-shirt, blue jeans and sturdy hiking shoes and carrying a walkie-talkie, he roams the halls of West Side High School like a friendly commando, coaxing students into class - ''Carol, go to class'' - and urging them to obey the rules - ''Ms. Luciano, put that cigarette out.'' Mr. Reynolds uses non-authoritarian and unorthodox techniques in one of 11 alternative high schools in New York City, a place that tries to recapture teen-agers who have dropped out of - or been suspended from -the city's larger, more impersonal high schools. Almost a third of the 271 girls at West Side are mothers, some as young as 15. Most of the 600 students have previously been chronicially truant; many have attended more than three high schools.