December 3, 1986

More than 1,000 drivers of nonmedallion taxicabs converged on lower Manhattan yesterday morning in slow-moving convoys, turning vital highways and streets into parking lots and tying up traffic for more than five hours, the City Transportation Department said.. The cabdrivers, primarily from car services that operate in low-income areas and the boroughs outside Manhattan, were protesting Mayor Koch's plan to place them under the control of the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission. Organizers said they would demonstrate again next Tuesday, when the City Council is expected to approve a bill empowering the Taxi Commission to license and inspect the vehicles. The bill would require payment of more than $400 in annual fees for driver and vehicle licenses and vehicle inspections. ''I doubt if we'll turn the vote around,'' said the president of the Metropolitan Livery Association, Frank Manzella. ''But we felt we might get a postponement, which would give us time to work.'' The Association represents about 70 community car services.

A former New York City transportation commissioner, Anthony R. Ameruso, was indicted yesterday by a Manhattan grand jury on perjury charges stemming from testimony he gave to a city commission investigating his real-estate holdings. The indictment charged that Mr. Ameruso lied when he failed to disclose under questioning his financial interest in the Chief Realty Company. The New Jersey concern had a ''business relationship'' with a company that received a permit from the city's Transportation Department earlier this year to operate ferry service between Weehawken, N.J., and the West Side of Manhattan. The indictment was the latest to stem from the city's numerous investigations in the municipal corruption scandal. Mr. Ameruso resigned as Transportation Commissioner on Jan. 29 as the scandal in the city's Parking Violations Bureau - a unit of the Transportation Department -began to unfold, saying that although he had not been implicated, he must ''take my share of the accountability.''

The Mesa Petroleum Company, whose chairman, T. Boone Pickens, is known as one of the most tenacious of corporate raiders, said last night that it and a partner would offer almost $2.03 billion in securities to acquire all of the shares of the Diamond Shamrock Corporation, another big oil and gas concern. Diamond Shamrock said in a statement, however, that it had discussed an offer different from that outlined by the Mesa partnership. According to Ginger Shearburn, Diamond Shamrock's spokesman, the Mesa partnership had proposed to acquire only 51 percent of the shares of Dallas-based Diamond Shamrock, not 100 percent. ''That's our understanding of the offer,'' Ms. Shearburn said.

John Gotti was described in Federal District Court testimony in Brooklyn yesterday as a crime boss who ruled with an iron hand. The witness said Mr. Gotti once told someone who wanted to leave his organization, ''You don't get released from John Gotti's crew - you live with John Gotti, you die with John Gotti.'' The picture of the man who, the authorities say, heads the Gambino crime family, the largest and most powerful organized-crime group, was from James Cardinali. Mr. Cardinali, a 37-year-old admitted murderer, said he had worked for Mr. Gotti from 1979 to 1981 and was taken under his wing and taught the ways of the mob. '' 'No use of drugs, no selling of drugs,' '' Mr. Cardinali said Mr. Gotti told him in early 1980 while explaining the rules of his group. '' 'If I ever catch anybody in my crew, I'm going to kill them. I'm not going to let anyone embarrass me, and I'm going to make an example of the first one I catch.' ''

The Government index designed to foretell the economy climbed six-tenths of 1 percent in October, the largest gain since July, the Commerce Department reported today. Most analysts, however, took little comfort in the latest figures, asserting that they most likely pointed to a continuation of lackluster economic growth in the months ahead. In fact, the bond market, which feeds on indications of sluggish business activity, rose substantially despite the fact that the rise in the index of leading indicators was greater than expected. Only five of the 11 components available out of the 12 that make up the index contributed to the gain and three of these were financial items that economists consider less important than components related to the production of goods and services.