November 20, 1986

All eight defendants in a dramatic 10-week racketeering trial were convicted yesterday of operating a ''commission'' that ruled the Mafia throughout the United States. The Federal trial in Manhattan attained national significance as the first case to focus on the commission of top crime leaders, portrayed by the prosecution as ''the board of directors'' of the Mafia, or La Cosa Nostra. ''The verdict reached today has resulted in dismantling the ruling council of La Cosa Nostra,'' the United States Attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, said in a statement issued by his office in Manhattan. Law-enforcement authorities said the verdicts would make it easier to fight racketeering. The Government has recently been making a major assault on the mob, and since last year has brought Mafia cases in Kansas City, Boston, New Jersey and Philadelphia, among other places. [ Page B8. ] A Juror in Tears At 12:20 P.M. in a crowded, tensely quiet courtroom of Federal District Court, the jury announced its verdict on the sixth day of deliberations, convicting all the defendants of all the charges against them.

For the first time, officials in the communities along the 24 miles of the Jersey Shore's delicate Barnegat Bay are moving toward a cooperative effort to protect the waterfront from overdevelopment. The move is being pushed by legislators, state regulators and town officials who fear that without a guiding plan, the shallow network of estuary and bay may be filled in, built up and bulkheaded to the breaking point. A handful of towns, tired of summertime congestion and spoiled views, have already passed moratoriums on condominium and apartment construction. Others have decided informally to do the same.

The lawyer for Stanley M. Friedman, the Bronx Democratic leader, asked a Federal jury today to acquit his client, saying the Government had presented ''a case of 100 reasonable doubts.'' In a two-and-a-half-hour closing argument, the lawyer, Thomas P. Puccio, assailed the Government's major witnesses - many of them confessed or convicted criminals -and said the trial came down to a question of the credibility of ''Stanley Friedman, head to head against the dregs of the earth.'' Mr. Puccio's summation was the first in what is expected to be two days of closing arguments by the lawyers for the four defendants in the Federal case stemming from New York City's municipal corruption scandal. He was folowed by Gerald B. Lefcourt, the lawyer for Marvin B. Kaplan, president of Citisource Inc., a company that held a contract to manufacture hand-held computers to issue summonses for the city's Parking Violations Bureau.

Kodak Leaves South Africa The photographic company is withdrawing, not only by selling assets but by halting all shipments of its products to South Africa.

The nation's economy expanded faster in the third quarter than originally estimated, but much of the improvement came from an increase in Government spending for military procurement, the Commerce Department said today. In the quarter ended Sept. 30 the gross national product grew at an annual rate of 2.9 percent, or $25.9 billion, after adjustment for inflation, the department said. This is half a percentage point more than the 2.4 percent growth rate tentatively reported on Oct. 22 for the quarter. The new data show a boom in automobile sales and a modest improvement in the foreign trade position of the United States.